MANCHURIA CRADLE OF CONFLICT

109360

MANCHURIA
CRADLE OF CONFLICT

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

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MANCHURIA

CRADLE OF CONFLICT

BY

OWEN LATTIMORE

NEW YORE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1931

COPYRIGHT, 1932,
BY THE MACMELLAN COMPANY.

All rights reserved no part of this book
may be reproduced in any form without
permission in writing from the publisher,
except by a reviewer who wishes to quote
brief passages in connection with a review
written for inclusion in magazine or
newspaper.

Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1939.

TO

ELEANOR

INTRODUCTION

THIS book is founded on the experience gained during
about nine months of travel and residence in Manchuria, in
1929-30, under a fellowship from the Social Science Research
Council, New York. Previous experience on the borders of
China and Inner Mongolia, and a long journey through Mon-
golia and Chinese Turkestan, had convinced me that a study
of Manchuria must be essential to an understanding of the
vast territory that lies between China and Russia. Manchuria,
Mongolia and Chinese Turkestan were once important as the
lands in which the "northern barbarians" of China's frontier
maneuvered in war and migration, working out among their
own tribes their destinies of conquest in China or migration
toward the West. They are now becoming a field of contest
between three types of civilization the Chinese, the Russian
and the Western. In our generation the most acute rivalry
is in Manchuria, and the chief protagonist of the Western
civilization is Japan whose interpretation and application of
a borrowed culture is of acute interest to the Western world,
as on it turns to a great extent the choice which other nations
have yet to make between their own indigenous cultures and
the rival conquering cultures of Russia and the West.

During our stay in Manchuria my wife and I tried to make
our experience as varied as possible, but at the same time to
stay long enough in each region studied to insure that our
impressions should not be too superficial. Thus we spent part
of the winter in one room at an inn, in a mud-walled "boom"

Vll

viii INTRODUCTION

town on the Western frontiers of Manchuria, where Chinese
colonists are rapidly taking over Mongol pastures and open-
ing them to cultivation. Then we moved to another one-
room lodging in an old thatched schoolhouse, in a small
town in Kirin province, where the population was old-fash-
ioned and predominantly Manchu.

In the spring I went up again to the Western frontiers and
traveled, first by military motor convoy and then riding with
border troopers, among the Mongols. When the ice broke
up on the great Sungari river, I traveled on one of the first
steamers down to the junction of the Sungari with the Amur
about four hundred miles. As the steamers were afraid to
venture into the Amur, no settlement having yet been made
of the dispute between China and Russia, I traveled on by cart,
with a good deal of difficulty, for some distance along the
flooded banks of the Amur, among the "Fishskin Tatars."
Later in the summer I visited Hailar, in the Barga region.

In the intervals between traveling, or making long stays
in the country, we visited the chief cities Mukden, Dairen,
Harbin and Kirin city or made short stays at smaller towns,
or in villages, or at temples in the hills. In the larger towns
we naturally did our best to meet well-informed people of
all nationalities, but out in the country we rarely saw a for-
eigner, and often went for weeks without speaking English
except to each other. As we traveled very simply, had no
need of an interpreter, used always the same means of travel
as the people of the region and lived in the same kind of
houses or inns, our contact with the life about us was as close
as possible. We were thus able to collect a great deal of local
tradition not only legend and folklore, but the memories
of the older inhabitants besides noting the signs of that
"modern progress" which is the chief enthusiasm of the
younger generation.

INTRODUCTION ix

Before leaving for Manchuria, I worked for about six
months at Harvard, in the Department of Anthropology
and at the Widener Library, so that by the time we set out
we knew not only where we wanted to go but what kind of
work we wanted to do. As for methods, we knew from ex-
perience how we expected to get down to work; and consider-
ing the difficulties of banditry, the disturbances consequent
on the conflict between China and Russia over the Chinese
Eastern Railway, and the local problems that can crop up
in so wide a region as Manchuria, we succeeded passably
W&Lin carrying out our plans.

This book has been written since our return from Manchu-
ria, in the intervals of further research in Peiping, and I feel
that I should say something of the "source material" used.
This has been almost entirely Chinese. There exists a great
mass of Chinese material dealing with Manchuria, especially
from the Ta Ch'ing or Manchu dynasty; but it is not well
organized, and what is wanted has to be "dug out."
My principal sources have been the following:
The Ch'in Ting Ta Ch'ing Hui Tien, is an encyclopaedic
compilation of the laws and regulations of the Manchu Em-
pire, printed in 1818, bearing on the multifarious public ques-
tions of administration, social organization, land tenure, taxa-
tion, military establishment, religion, education, government
of the non-Chinese races within the Empire, official and pri-
vate life, and so on. As much of the "law" concerned is not
strictly law, but administrative procedure, recorded in suc-
cessive edicts and based on precedent and custom, the regular
form of entry is chronological, the successive amendments of
different reigns being recorded in order, together with many
rulings given in disputed cases. The subject matter, however,
is divided under many headings, so that whatever bears on
Manchuria has to be sought out with diligence. As the whole

x INTRODUCTION

work is published in sixty too or "cases," each containing an
average of seven or eight pin or separate books, this is not a
light matter.

The Huang Ch'ing K'ai Kuo Fang Liich is the official
Manchu account (in Chinese) of the origins and founda-
tion of the Manchu dynasty. It was printed in 1786, in two
"cases," each containing eight "books." There is a German
translation by E. Hauer (1926).

The Man Chou Shih Lu was published by the Mukden
Bureau of Records, in 1930, in one fao of eight pin. It was
printed from a manuscript in the Mukden Palace, and is
apparently the account of the early Manchus as preserved
for the imperial household. It differs in some respects from
other accounts.

The Tung Hua Hsu Lu or Tung Hua Ch'iian Lu is a chron-
icle of the Manchu emperors. The form of compilation is a
record, from day to day, of all manner of affairs dealt with by
the emperor. It is in twenty-six t'ao, each containing on an
average seven pin. Unless a date is known beforehand, there is
no way of getting at the material required except by going
right through the whole work. I am at present compiling an
extract of all references in this chronicle to Korea, Manchuria,
Mongolia, Chinese Turkestan and Russia. The record runs
from T'ien Ming (1616) down to the end of the reign of Tao
Kuang (1851), and I understand there is a continuation
carrying the account to the end of the reign of Tung Chih

(1875)-

The Tung Chih or "gazetteers" and Wai Chih or unof-
ficial gazetteers of the various provinces are available in a
number of editions, of which some are more comprehensive
than others. They deal under classified headings with all
manners of affairs within the province, and include even
biographies of celebrated men and women.

INTRODUCTION xi

The Tung Pel Nien Chien, a new publication, is a yearbook
of the Northeastern Provinces, issued for the first time in 1931,
by the Cultural Society of the Northeastern Provinces, at
Mukden.

The total amount of print in even the few Chinese sources
just mentioned is so great that I have not, naturally, been
able to search the whole. What I have done is to check, as
far as possible, my own conclusions formed in the course of
travel and from previous reading.

In the material dealt with in this book I have tried to
break new ground. It is, for instance, a common practice
to treat the Manchu conquest of China as the beginning of
intelligible history in Manchuria, and the entry of Russia
and Japan into Manchurian affairs as the beginning of the
significant history of the region. As the correction of this,
estimate has been one of my objects, I have endeavored to
bring out the fact that the ancient "tribal" history of Man- >
churia, so far from being an academic question to be dis-
missed in a prefatory chapter, should be recognized as the
prototype out of which has developed, with remarkably full
historic continuity, the modern relation between China and
Manchuria, and therefore a great part of the conflict of the
present day, with its invasion of colonists and rivalry of w&s
zations.

Thus, on the foundation of a study of the type and style in
action of the old barbarian tribes in their recurrent pressure
on China, and the reflex action of China, and especially
nese culture, on the barbarians, l]^SJ5^
of the interacting migrations of peoples and cu
churia, TbeKeve, the influence of te region itseUHias tended
always to predominate over the peoples and cultures that turn
by turn have exercised the power of the region; so that even
now, under the profound alteration of Manchurian life, and

xii INTRODUCTION

the rapid destruction of old Manchurian tradition brought
about by the sudden, vigorous onslaught of machine civiliza-
tion, can be traced the tidal influence of the ineluctable Man-
churian regional relation to China, to Mongolia and to Rus-
siaand also to Korea and Japan. The old forces persist,
though they work through altered activities.

My thanks are due not only to the Social Science Research
Council, but to the American Geographical Society, which,
interested especially in pioneer colonization, also gave me en-
couragement and support, and to the Peabody Museum of
Anthropology at Harvard, to which the Social Science Re-
search Council sent me for preliminary study, and which fur-
thered the specifically anthropological side of my work in
Manchuria.

After my wife and I had arrived in Manchuria, we met with
generous encouragement on all sides. Marshal Chang Hsiieh-
liang showed a personal interest which was of inestimable
value in facilitating our approach to officials everywhere.
General Chang Tso-hsiang, Governor of Kirin, and General
Tsou Tso-hua, Tupan of the great Hsingan Colonization
Project, gave us direct aid of the greatest value. Mr. W. H.
Donald assisted us with his usual generous disregard for his
own time and convenience. The South Manchuria Railway
Company, always cordial to research workers, gave us every
facility. From the Irish, Scotch and Canadian Presbyterian
missionaries in Mukden, Kirin, T'iehling, Liaoning, Hulan
and T'aonan, we received unstinted hospitality and help, as
also from officials of the Chinese Maritime Customs, Post
Office and Chinese Eastern Railway, and from private in-
dividuals. In more than one place Chinese residents, on whom
we had no claim at all, put themselves out to aid and enter-
tain us, with the most friendly interest.

To my wife, who accompanied me for the greater part

INTRODUCTION xiii

of the time, putting up with inconveniences which can only
be appreciated by those who know what it is like to stay for
long periods in remote villages and country inns, I owe more
than I can say. Finally, it is a pleasure to record once more the
name of "Moses," Li Pao-shu, whose humor and shrewdness
contributed as much to the success of our work in Manchuria
as they had to our travels in Mongolia and Chinese Turkestan.

OWEN LATTIMORE

Peiping
December 10, 1931

MAPS

FACING PAGE

RAILWAY MAP OF MANCHURIA 106

RELIEF MAP OF MANCHURIA 302

RESERVOIRS, LEAGUES, AND BANNERS 302

LOCATION MAP OF MANCHURIA 302

riv

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION

I: THE BATTLEGROUND OF RACE
AND CULTURE

Differences between Manchuria and Other Undeveloped Lands 3

Chinese Civilization and "Westernization" 8

The Three Provinces 1 3

Economic Effects of Climate J 7

Communications and Foreign Pressure 20

II: THE "RESERVOIR" OF TRIBAL INVASIONS

Old Non-Chinese Populations 3 1

The Tribes and the "Reservoirs" 3 6

Mongol, Manchu and Chinese 4 2

Land Tenure and Tribal Organization 4&

III: EARLY CHINESE EXPANSION: CONQUEST
AND COMPROMISE

Chinese and Mongols 53

Chinese and Manchus 60

Manchuria at the Fall of the Manchu Empire 7

IV: THE LIVING FORCE OF CHINESE CULTURE

East and West 79

China and Japan 5

Western Pressure on China through Manchuria 93

The Old Age of Chinese Civilization 9^

The Manchurian Pressure on China 99

V: THE RUSSIANS TURN TO' THE EAST

Russians and Manchus *5

The Russian Advance down the Amur no

Foreign Aggression and Chinese Expansion "6

XV

UUJNIJiNTS

VI- LAND AND POWER IN CHINESE
MANCHURIA

PAGE

Public Land and Tribal Land 1 19

Officials as Exploiters i3 2

VII: EXPLOITATION AND WESTERNIZATION

Westernization and the Struggle against the West 149

The Technician Master or Servant? 165

VIII: SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION

Military Frontier Colonization 178

The Opium Pioneers 187

The Shantung Tradition *97

IX: REFUGEES, FRONTIERSMEN AND BANDITS

Refugee Colonization 209

Colonists by Birth and Tradition 221

The Bandit as Frontiersman 224

X: ALIENS AND THE LAND

Japanese and Korean Immigration 236

Russian Immigration 243

XI: THE CITIES AGAINST THE COUNTRY

Peasant and Townsman 254

Standards of Living 264

XII: MANCHURIA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD

Manchuria and China 276

The Place of Manchuria in World Affairs 290

INDEX 303

MANCHURIA
CRADLE OF CONFLICT

CHAPTER I

THE BATTLEGROUND OF RACE AND CULTURE

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MANCHURIA AND OTHER
UNDEVELOPED LANDS

POPULAR interest in Manchuria turns on two things: the
spectacular immigration of enormous numbers of Chinese
(perhaps, in the rapidity of settlement and the numbers in-
volved, the greatest peaceful migration in history), the pros-
pect of commercial exploitation in a field unencumbered by
out-of-date industries; and the recurrent political tension
which makes it a danger to the international, relations not only
of Asia but of the whole world. There is a" tendency to as-
sume that in Manchuria there is a clear field; that there is
almost no necessity of making over an old civilization, with
all its vested interests, social and economic, and that it is there-
fore an ideal territory for the introduction of "modern
civilization."

Yet there are striking differences between Manchuria (and
the contiguous region of Mongolia) and any other region of
pioneer settlement. The tension of international affairs alone
is enough to distinguish it not only from Australia, the Ar-
gentine, or Northwest Canada, but even from the regions of
European settlement in Africa, where the international and
racial factors differ not in degree but in kind from those of
Northeastern Asia. Historically, Manchuria is a part of the
great migration-ground of Eastern and Central Asia, In our
time, the form b? migration is changing. The great move-

4 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

ment of population toward Manchuria is paralleled and
rivaled by a migration of ideas and cultures. The Western
world tends to assume that "modern civilization" that is,
the civilization of Europe and America is alone worth the
name of civilization, and that the process .of spreading it and
civilizing the rest of the world involves jio problem of the
proof of superiority; for the inferior nations of the world, once
they are confronted with "modern civilization," must ob-
viously recognize its virtues and hasten to convert themselves,
^et, in point of fact, Manchuria is a focus of conflict in which
meet three antipathetic styles of civilization: the old but stilU
vigorous civilization of China, the newer but materially more
powerful civilization of the West, and the newest of all, a
force still largely incalculable, the civilization which is being
created in our time in Russia and, rejected by the West, is
turning with great vigor toward the Orient.

'So far from being a "virgin" country, Manchuria is a vast
territory with an important regional, racial and cultural his-
tory of its own. The problems of modern colonization can-
not be dealt with simply in terms of the numbers of colonists
who settle annually, and the number of new commercial op-
portunities created. Historical forces, which influence the
affairs of the living, must be taken into consideration; the
importance of the region, in its bearing on culture, and of cul-
ture, in its effect on races: above all, it is necessary to hold in
mind the importance of ideas and the way of life of different
peoples, as opposed to purely material factors of climate and
geography. To elucidate these manifold and often conflicting
forces, and to set forth, with as sympathetic an understanding
as possible, the point of view and way of life of the different
nations and cultures involved is the object of this book.

Manchuria is a storm-center of the world. In actual colo-
nization, China is overwhelmingly in the lead; but on either

RACE AND CULTURE 5

flank stand Russia and Japan, in strategic positions which we
are accustomed to describe as ''dominating/' but which are
really more than that they are imperative. As far as can be
seen from present conditions the pressure of these two nations
on Manchuria, unavoidable because inherent in their po-
sitions, has not yet reached its maximum. It is commonly held
that the Chinese are proving that in the basic fact of colo-
nization, by occupying Manchuria with a Chinese population,
they can put themselves beyond competition from Russians
or Japanese, and far beyond competition from the non-Chinese
indigenous races. If, however, Manchuria is in this inspect
primarily a field of Chinese colonization, yet China is handi-
capped by the difficulty of asserting its power and control
over Manchuria as an integral part of China, or even as an
outer dominion, for China is weak in its relation to any alien
power. The power of united China is growing, undoubtedly;
but that growth depends to a gravely dangerous extent on the
good will of foreign nations, so that the Chinese: are not yet
fullVmasters of theS: own destiny. The incorporation of alien
principles with the traditional culture of China itself has not
yet been successfully completed; a critical period has yet to
be faced in which China must prove that its reconstructed cul-
ture can develop the power of fresh social growth, and it must
therefore be considered still an open question how far Man-
churia may come to be a colonial region occupied by Chinese
but in some degree dominated, and correspondingly exploited,
by non-Chinese governments.

The grave weight of the historical factor must also be con-
sidered. In Africa, for instance, in the regions affected by
actual settlement of Europeans on the land, the indigenous
tribal populations offer problems which are often difficult
enough. They have a history, of a sort, but it is emphatically!
not a history of dynamic growth and really dangerous as-

6 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

sertion. There is a problem of how to deal with them, but
there is not a problem of whether they can be dealt with

at all.

In Manchuria, on the other hand, the factor of history is one
of the most powerful living forces in the present. Time and
again races emanating from Manchuria, and still to a certain
extent represented there (of whom the most important are
now not the Manchus but the Mongols), have led or shared
in conquests of China, and have established in China domin-
ions of greater or less territorial extent, in which the Chinese
became politically a subordinate race. In fact China's im-
mediate title to Manchuria derives historically from the con-
quest of China by the Manchus. In earlier periods, however,
China had exercised a certain sovereignty over parts of Man-
churia. Signs of the influence of Chinese culture can be de-
tected in the remotest parts of the country, and must often
antedate by generations the actual arrival of Chinese colonists
in decisive numbers. One of the important tasks of future
research in Manchuria and Mongolia must be to determine
how far Chinese influences were carried and actively propa-
gated by the Chinese, and how far they were brought back as
part of their plunder by admiring non-Chinese raiders and
conquerers who would naturally be guided by non-Chinese
criteria of what was admirable and imitable, and what was
merely luxurious.

We can appreciate to some extent the importance of this
long historical relationship if we imagine that the various
wars against native tribes in North America and Africa were
not merely the overcoming of difficulties in the way of estab-
lishing the white man, whose ultimate triumph was a fore-
gone conclusion, but were vital decisions of recurrent prob-
lems of whether the colonist was to rule the native or whether
red or black dynasties were to be set up, ruling over and ex-

RACE AND CULTURE 7

ploiting the colonists. The fact is that however empty of
"natives" the part of Manchuria in which a Chinese colonist
settles, and however ignorant he may be, it is not to him an
empty land historically. While he was growing up in China,
long before he thought of emigrating, he was familiar with
legends and hero-tales of battles and stratagems in which
victory often wavered between the mighty but stupid bar-
barians and the champions of his own people, often weaker
but always more astute, often resigned to defeat but always
confident of their superiority in culture. He has come to
settle in and identify himself with a land into which, even in
the glorious past, his own people always ventured at their
peril, and in which was always latent a threat of dominion
over China.

There is no single Chinese name for Manchuria as a unit, in
inevitable common use, corresponding to our use of the non-
Chinese term "Manchuria," to which Chinese object because
it does not suggest that Manchuria is an integral part of China
but, on the contrary, implies a distinction between Manchuria
and China proper. Even the term Three Eastern Provinces
is comparatively modern, has been deliberately fostered by
publicists, and is on the whole unsatisfactory, owing to the
fact that at present, with the inclusion of the Jehol region of
Inner Mongolia in the Manchurian military-political group,
there is some uncertainty as between Three Eastern Provinces
and Four Eastern Provinces. Consequently the simpler term
Eastern Provinces is now preferred. The commonest ver-
nacular terms for Manchuria are K'ou Wm, which means
Outside the Passes (of the Great Wall) and applies to Mon-
golia and Chinese Turkestan as well as to Manchuria, and
Tung K'ou Wai, which means Outside the Eastern Pass (at
Shanhaikuan) and applies to Manchuria in a general sense,
but perhaps more specifically to the southern districts with

8 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

which the Chinese have been most familiar from ancient
times. These names have a certain ring of hostility, but there
is no doubt that they evoke for Chinese an impressively rich
association of ideas. To the emigrating European "the Colo-
nies" mean, in one aspect, the sadness of separation from
home; in another, the adventure into the unknown but a
triumphant adventure, not an intrusion into the territory of
the conquerors of his people. The comparable emotions of
the emigrating Chinese, when it is a question of migrating
beyond the Great Wall but not when it is a question of
emigrating to, say, the South Seas are, in the first place,
a feeling of risking himself beyond the Wall (the defensive
Wall) and, in the second place, after he has once become es-
tablished, a feeling that he is nowjna superior position with
regard toJChina. He is npjpnger defended by the Great Wall
frontier! it is China that is defended by the Wall from him
and his compeers." In other words, there is a partial and
curious, but most significant substitution of regional feeling
for race or national feeling; the phenomenon, in fact, of the
permanence of a certain social psychology within a region,
governed by the conditions of the region and paramount,
intermittently at least, over the conditions of race, culture or
nationality of the different peoples that successively hold
the region.

CHINESE CIVILIZATION AND "WESTERNIZATION"

If the psychology of regional feeling is a powerful motive
running through Manchurian history, cultural motives are
also of high importance. There is the unitary tribal feeling
(from almost the beginning practically a caste-feeling) of the
Manchus; the multiple tribal feeling of the Mongols; and
above all the cultural and racial feeling of the Chinese.

RACE AND CULTURE 9

The most important thing about the civilization of China,
in itself, is its age. It is not only a mature and an old civiliza-
tion, but a decidedly "late" civilization; and it is correspond-
ingly difficult for any population saturated with its feeling
and oriented by its standard to modify either its instinctive
feeling or its intellectual methods. The Chinese migration to
Manchuria long ago passed the stage of the "Pilgrim Fathers"
or "pioneers of the frontier," though pioneer elements do
survive. It is, one may say, not a naive but a sophisticated
migration. This is a truth too much obscured by the poverty,
ignorance and general social depression of the migrants as
individuals. Yet the fact is that, however "primitive" as in-
dividuals, they are, as a group, under the pronounced control
of "civilized" feelings. If the European-American pioneer
colonist of the present day is psychologically biased by such
artificial considerations as railways, motor roads and the ac-
cessibility of towns, so is the Chinese. That is, he has no long-
ing for the wilderness as such; he is reluctant to move beyond
the reach of the civilization that he knows, and on the whole,
as a community, he looks up to the city and down on the ;
village and the farm.

It must, however, be also always borne in mind that therd
is a profound difference between our civilization and that of
the Chinese. The difference is one both of underlying feeling
and conscious point of view, a subjective difference in the
mode of every process, and an objective difference in every i
result that is planned for.

The cleavages between Orient and Occident are prolific
sources of prejudice and nonsense, and must therefore be
handled with extreme wariness. It would be grotesque to
study Manchuria, where so many powerful "modern" factors
are at work and where technical borrowings from the West
probably play a more important part than in any other part

I0 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

of China of equal area, with an imagination biased by popular
conceptions of "Orientalism." At the same time the problems
of Manchuria are, in spite of their international bearings, a
specifically Chinese study, in view of the colonization now
taking place and the overwhelming racial dominance and
great cultural vigor of the Chinese. These problems therefore
would also be distorted if the pronounced individuality in
style of the Chinese culture and civilization were not con-
sidered at all.

The mere fact that the Chinese have a highly developed,
individual civilization is enough to place Manchuria, with
Mongolia and Chinese Turkestan, in a different category from
all the other great regions of the world that are now being
settled and civilized for the first time. This ought to be a
glaring truth, but it has never been so treated. As a spectacle,
the Chinese colonization of Manchuria is so magnificent, the
rr^ions^^^l^ ^S & rapidity of their spread have
such a dramatic appeal, that there cannot but be a tendency
among Westerners especially in a nation like America with
a strong and highly sentimentalized pioneering tradition
to regard it as a spectacle in our own manner. We tend to
stress the resemblances to the great colonizing migrations of
our own people and kindred peoples the filling up of Amer-
ica and the advance across the continent, and the parallel
phenomena of the colonial expansion of European countries in
the nineteenth century. What is amazing, however, is that
the colonial problem of Manchuria should be so commonly
discussed as if it were a subsidiary phenomenon of our own
world, and nothing else a mere incident in the spread of
our own technical methods and style of expansion and ex-
ploitation, which began to dominate our society in the late
eighteenth century and is now reaching out to grasp the
rest of the world. Time and again discussions not only of'

RACE AND CULTURE 11

Manchuria but of all Chinese questions are vitiated by such
misleading references to what may be happening, but what
we cannot yet be sure is happening, as: "When China has
added Western technique to her own ancient civilization . . "^
"When the modernization of China has been completed . . ."
"The latest scientific methods are now being employed
j n . . ._ as if the o/y question at issue were that of the rapid-
ity with which China can be converted into a second and
greater Japan. And the folly of describing "the relief of con-
gested population in China by emigration to Manchuria and
Mongolia" as if such relief were a solution of the population
problem of China is constantly repeated.

For there can be no doubt about the radical divergences
between China and Japan. Just as the difference between ;
America and'Spain is one of degree but that between America
and China one of kind, so the difference between Japan and
China also is one of kind, that between Japan and Germany
essentially one of degree only. Japan, as an imperial and
colonial power, must be ranked as one of our own group of
Western nations; and that not merely in method, as is so
often postulated, but in character. This must not be lost sight
of when considering the pressure of Japan on the Chinese
who are colonizing and governing Manchuria.

If there had been any real, any valid drift toward Western-
ization in China, the Chinese could easily and long ago in
the eighteenth century, for instance, when the Jesuits stood so
high at the court of the Manchu emperors-have forestalled
the rise of Japan as the leading Western nation of the East.
As things are, such Westernization as has taken place cannot
definitely be rated as the beginning of a transformation from
within of the Chinese culture; it can only be discussed as a
question of the degree to which the Chinese instinct has suc-
ceeded in adopting Western inventions without subordinating

12 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

itself to the Western technique or the Western mental atti-
tude in using them. The differences between Japan and China
strike very deep. Japan, in the past, voluntarily reformed its
own culture (which already contained a diversity of elements
of widely differing provenance) by selective borrowing from
the high civilization of China. A strong precedent therefore
existed for a fresh voluntary reconstruction through selective
borrowing from the West. The culture of China, on the other
hand, was autochthonous and monopolistic, accustomed to
cultural lending but not to cultural borrowing for even such
an apparently important borrowing as, for instance, the intro-
duction of Buddhism from India, was essentially a fashion,
did not involve any radical revaluation of society or culture.
The pride which the Japanese feel in their own skill in syn-
thesis and constructive borrowing does not therefore by any
means automatically stimulate admiration or respect in China
for the way that Japan has jumped ahead in Westernization;
on the contrary, there is a strong disposition in China to be-
little Japanese "progress" as mere servile imitation, and to
impute to Japan a weakness in the faculty of organic growth.
China, it is felt, ought not to imitate either Japan or the
West; to do so would be surrender. W^ernization, so far
as it is to be adopted atjilk, ought to be introduced as a sub-
ordinate jfckment, neverjisja contrpUing elejment.

WHat is true is that the necessities of Manchuria are im-
posing on the Chinese an increased use of Western borrowings
which explains the relative material "progressiveness" of
Manchuria in comparison with the rest of China and that
parallel with the Chinese expansion, in a characteristically
Chinese manner, throughout Manchuria, there is a direct ap-
plication of Western methods, in the full Western manner, by
Japan, in the zone of the South Manchuria Railway, and by
Russia, in a somewhat modified manner, in the zone of the

RACE AND CULTURE 13

Chinese Eastern Railway. A crisis can therefore be foreseen,
and is in fact near at hand, the upshot of which will be a
decision as between the mastery of the Chinese by the Western
methods, and the survival of the Chinese manner in spite
of the Western methods which the Chinese tradition is in-
creasingly forced to employ. This may completely alter the
complexion of the colonizing and colonial problem in Man-
churia. In the meantime Westernization is not, as is too
generally assumed, the solution of all the problems of the
rapid Chinese expansion, but is in fact the most ambiguous of
the problems raised by that expansion.

Still, different as are the factors of tradition and tempera-
ment in East and West, it ought to be possible to assess Man-
churian values in terms convincing to Western students. The
essential requirement is a faculty of sympathy, which allows
for states of feeling as well as for matters of fact. The living
phenomena of society must be followed out and revealed in
their relation to facts, which is like the relation of living
motion to physical structure. Manner is as important as cause
and effect. The study of the way in which things are done
must be added to the catalogue of things that happen. There-
fore, in all that follows, an effort has been made to balance
the citation of facts and material circumstances with con-
stant reference to cultures and the living.style of different so-
cieties, as far as an outsider can penetrate them, in order to
illuminate, wherever possible, the importance in all social and
historical processes of the mode in action.

THE THREE PROVINCES

The general features of the land of Manchuria, and the
relation of land to people, are well enough known. In con-
sidering a map of Fengtien (now called Liaoning), Kirin and

i 4 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

Heilungchiang, what leaps to the eye is the admirable regu-
larity with which racial, cultural and political divisions have,
in the course of history, been adjusted to physical conforma-
tion. The region of Jehol, though commonly considered in
the light of contemporary Chinese politics as a fourth prov-
ince of Manchuria, need not be dealt with as a separate di-
vision, since it is in effect a borderland, falling in part to the
North China escarpment of the Mongolian plateau and in
part to the region where the Mongolian plateau declines grad-
ually toward the western plain of Fengtien or Liaoning.

For western Liaoning is physically and historically an east-
ern extension of Mongolia. From the Liao valley it extends
northwestward to the Hsingan range; but most of the western
frontier lies along a gradual rise to the Mongolian plateau,
without the abrupt escarpment characteristic of the North
China frontier. Liaoning east of the Liao valley and north-
eastward up to the spurs of the Ch'angpaishan is also a plain,
though under the influence of the hills, and is the old area of
Chinese occupation and still the center of gravity of Chinese
influence.

Central Kirin is a mountain country, dominated by the
Ch'angpaishan and is the political scene of the rise of the
Manchus to dynastic power. Kirin north of the Chinese
Eastern Railway line from Harbin to Pogranichnaya, and
practically the whole of Heilungchiang east of the Hsingan, is
the land of the greatest plains and the greatest rivers, and of
.mountain ranges almost unpenetrated. Historically the valley
of the Mutanchiang or Hurka is the original home of the
Manchus, while the rest is the old unregenerate wilderness
hardly affected by Chinese culture and almost unpenetrated
by Chinese colonists until the twentieth century.

Heilungchiang west of the Hsingan is the great Barga
plain, which is related to Outer Mongolia much as western

RACE AND CULTURE 15

Liaoning is related to Inner Mongolia, but with the historical
difference that the political and cultural connection with
China is much more tenuous.

The chief mountain systems are those of the Ch'angpaishan
in the east and the Hsingan in the west and northwest. The
Hsingan, swinging round in the north by the extension of the
Little Hsingan, more or less links up with minor ranges like
the Ulgen-alin and, leaving a great cleft in which lies the lower
valley of the Sungari, with the Nadan Hada-alin. Thus topo-
graphically (though in structure and geological age the moun-
tains are not necessarily homogeneous) the orographical
skeleton of Manchuria is a vast arc, running from the east
round by the north to the west. On the south, Manchuria
is almost closed off from North China by the projection east-
ward from Jehol of the escarpment of the Mongolian plateau.
Thus while western Liaoning province merges into Mongolia,
it shares with Inner Mongolia the barrier on the south,
facing China.

The basin of the Amur lies outside the main mountain arc,
following it round in a great curve on the north. East of the
mountain arc are the long, narrow valleys of the Ussuri and
T'umen, running north, and the Yalu, running south. All
three are heavily forested and comparatively impenetrable,
except in so far as the rivers themselves can be used for travel
and trade. Thus it is not surprising that the eastern valleys,
and the greatest of all, the Amur, have historically and
tribally, and now politically, always been outer wards of
Manchuria.

West of the mountain arc lies, in the northwest, the great
Barga plain. Although politically included in the province
of Heilungchiang, it also belongs to the outer wards, and
merges geographically into the plateau of Outer Mongolia.
The Great Hsingan range is here a comparatively pronounced

16 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

frontier of many functions, geographical, climatic and ethnic.
South of the latitudes of Barga, the Great Hsingan tapers away
into the Southern Hsingan, and east-and-west distinctions be-
come increasingly vague. Southward of latitude forty-five
degrees North, the division between the inland drainage of
the Mongolian plateau and the basins of the T'ao and Liao
rivers has less and less the character of a ridge; south of
latitude forty-two degrees North, in fact, the Mongol-
inhabited plains of western Liaoning rise gradually west-
ward, with an increasingly Mongolian topography and cli-
mate, and merge through open, easily traversed hills, into
the plateau.

The core of Manchuria is the inner cirque of plains. The
basin of the Liao, in the south, merges without sharp dis-
tinction northwestward into the region drained by the T'ao'rh
or T'ao river, which communicates with the next great plain,
that of the middle Sungari but part of which is occupied by
shallow inland-drainage basins. The plain of the middle Sun-
gari, in turn, connects with that of the Nonni valley, which
extends far northward between the systems of the Great and
Little Hsingan, and is cut off by a narrow divide from the
Amur. The Sungari itself, at its junction with the Nonni,
turns abruptly east, and thence continuing eastward, but with
an increasing northerly trend, waters a great corridor plain
which opens into the Amur valley. It is significant that ac-
cording to the Chinese the Amur is a tributary of the Sungari,
and that they call the stream below the junction of the two
rivers not Amur but Sungari. This is due in the first place to
the historical line of Chinese penetration into Manchuria,
and in the second place to the decisive fact that the Manchu
power originated in the Mutan (Hurka) and upper Sungari
valleys. In point of fact the Nonni, as well as the Amur, is a
greater system than the Sungari, and at the junction of the

RACE AND CULTURE 17

Nonni and Sungari it is the Nonni which emphatically de-
termines the direction of flow. Thus we might well, but for
history, speak of the valley from Harbin to the Amur as the
lower Nonni, just as we speak of the valley from T'ungchiang
(Lahasusu) to the sea as the lower Amur, not the Sungari,
in despite of the Chinese nomenclature.

ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF CLIMATE

Generally speaking, neither climate nor soil has a decisive
effect on society or colonization in Manchuria. In the east
and northeast, it is true, a type of rice growing is profitable
and much employed which is not familiar to the average
colonist from North China, and is therefore carried on by
Korean immigrants working for Chinese landlords. It is also
true that Chinese rice growers from the south would not like
the climate, and that southern Chinese generally are prac-
tically never found on the land in Manchuria. However, the
main supply of colonists is from North China, and these men
find it necessary only to make comparatively unimportant ad-
justments in housing, clothing and methods of farming. In
general, they are able not only to grow exactly the same crops
as those they farmed in their old homes, but do not even have
to vary their methods.

On the whole, other reasons than climate and farming are
mainly responsible for the fact that southern Chinese, like the
Japanese, are not attracted to the land in Manchuria. The
southern Chinese migrate to Indo-China, the Straits Settle-
ments, and even farther overseas. This is not a recent phe-
nomenon due to famine at home or other drastic causes. Nor
is it primarily due to suitable climate and familiar conditions,
but to a pronounced "drift" and an ancient tradition, the im-
memorial movement of the Chinese from northwest to south-

i8 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

east. They have no such tradition connecting them with the
north, and though they come north as traders and capitalists,
the land to them is alien and the people uncongenial. Eco-
nomic factors confirm the tendency to southward emigration
from South China. The processes of necessary adaptation, in
moving south, are comparatively gradual: in moving north,
they are abrupt and extreme. As for the Japanese, although
climate has been blamed as one of the obstacles preventing
them from settling on the land in southern Manchuria, yet it
may be pointed out that climate makes no difference either
to the Japanese exploiter or to the petty merchant. Japanese
are found all over Manchuria, often putting up with con-
siderable hardship and inconvenience; but they will only enter
the occupations that are psychologically satisfactory to them.
Now the~chief bar to possible Japanese colonization in Man-
churia is usually said to be the standard of living; and this,
though not the whole truth, is pretty close to the mark. The
fact is that there is an unmistakable psychological inhibition
on the part of the Japanese, which is in itself a cause, more
than a result, of the standard of living. In Japan, as in Eng-
land, the supply of emigrants, in spite of the surplus popula-
tion, is not so large as the state would like it to be.

The historical hinge on which this turns is the rapidity of
Westernization in Japan. The Japanese have passed directly
into a late stage of .the Western type of civilization, over-
leaping thejghase of emigration through which, the English,
for instance, have passe3. Omitting colonization, they have
reached the exploiting "colonial" stage. Their instinct now
is to control policy and exploitation in "spheres of interest"
and "colonies" with non-Japanese populations, in preference
to transplanting their own population. In this lies the final
and most convincing proof of the now characteristically
Western style of Japanese civilization. Japanese can live on

RACE AND CULTURE 19

the land in regions like California but this must be, to a great
extent, because the Californian environment is even more
Western than "Westernized" Japan. In other words, Japanese
can remain on the land when the adaptation required is in
conformity with the Westernizing trend of modern Japan,
but not when the requirement is one of competition with the
standards which Japan is abandoning as it is in territories
with Chinese or Korean agricultural populations.

The climate of Manchuria is, however, responsible for im-
portant secondary social and economic phenomena. Thus the
short growing season demands intensive work, especially at
the time of plowing and again during the harvest. This labor
has been supplied, for generations, by a class of migrant work-
ers who come from North China for the season and return to
their homes for the winter. Wages have to be good enough
for men to be able to get home with something to spare for the
winter, and this helps to keep up the standard of living. The
short growing season and long idle season made it possible,
even before the days of railway transport, for men to travel
considerable distances from and to Manchuria, and encour-
aged the migrant to remain a migrant rather than to settle on
the land himself.

The settlers themselves are idle during most of the long
winter, when not even improvement work can be done on
the fast-frozen land, nor ditch-digging, nor house-building.
A few men work in the lumber camps; but it is worth noting
that migrant, landless men from China appear to predominate
in this work. A still smaller number take to hunting. On
the whole, however, the men who are permanently attached to
the land find their chief winter activity in transport.

Winter transport by cart was once among the most striking
economic characteristics of Manchuria. The hard-frozen
roads, often covered with packed snow, are then at their best,

20 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

whereas in summer they are either deeply rutted or filled with
sloughs of mire. It is in winter that grain and beans are
hauled to railhead or river bank. Besides hauling their own
produce, the owners of oxen and ponies are willing to work
for almost any hire that will cover the cost of feeding animals
which would otherwise be idle. Before the railways played
such a great part in the transport of Manchuria, the profits
were higher; but so low is the basic cost that the Chinese East-
ern Railway found only a few years ago that cargoes were
being hauled from points west of Harbin, all the way to
Ch'angch'un, where they were delivered direct to the South
Manchuria Railway thus cutting out the entire Southern
Line of the Chinese Eastern Railway. Special rates and
facilities had to be granted in order to get these cargoes on
to the Chinese Eastern Railway.

Winter continues to be the great season of transport and
travel, not only because it is the period of leisure, but because
it is still the only season when the roads are at their best.
In recent years motor-bus services have been started which
cover hundreds of miles of rural districts; but many services
have to be discontinued in the summer, owing to the state
of the roads, and so pronounced is the difference between
summer and winter traffic that many inns close up either
partially or entirely after the spring thaw.

COMMUNICATIONS AND FOREIGN PRESSURE

Every large river in Manchuria has played an important
part in the opening up of the country, and at the present time
river transport supplements and feeds the railway systems.
The chief cargo traffic of Manchuria is the export of agri-
cultural produce, and among secondary exports the timber
trade is important. For such freights the rivers are con-
spicuously well adapted, as downstream voyages are easier,

RACE AND CULTURE 21

quicker and cheaper than journeys upstream, and every navi-
gable river flows outward, favoring export as against import
traffic. Cargoes forwarded to collecting and shipping points
by cart over the frozen roads in winter can be carried by junk,
raft or steamer in spring and summer, when the roads are
hopelessly mired and the transport animals are at work in the
fields. The river system radiates in a remarkable manner from
the center of the country toward both north and south, and
with some degree of improvement and the construction of
canals an inland waterway system could be created that would
serve an astonishing total area and penetrate into the very
heart of the country.

In the south, the Liao river carries cargoes in wooden junks
down to the port of Yingk'ou or Newchwang. This traffic
was the earliest developed in Manchuria, and the relation of
the port of Yingk'ou to the ports of the Shantung promontory,
across the Gulf of Peichihli, is one of the most important of
the factors that determined the nature of the earliest Chinese
impact on Manchuria. At the present time, however, both
port and river have lost their dominant importance- The
shallowness of the Liao, and the irregular silting of the chan-
nel through floods, preclude steamer traffic, and the railway
systems of the modern period have largely diverted trade to
other outlets.

In the east the Yalu forms a great part of the boundary be-
tween Manchuria and Korea. It is used for floating down
great timber rafts, which may be weeks on the journey, so
that the raft crews even make a practice of growing small
floating vegetable gardens. There is a summer passenger
traffic in "scooters" flat-bottomed boats driven by aeroplane
propellers, which can ascend the river to a great distance. In
winter the frozen river becomes a thoroughfare for carts, all
the more serviceable because the forest on both sides makes it
difficult for carts to penetrate the mountains-

22 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

The T'umen, the counterpart of the Yalu, flows north and
completes the frontier between Korea and Kirin province.
Partly because it flows through country even less developed
and more thinly populated than the valley of the Yalu, it is
not so much used, but in essentials it appears to complement
the functions of the Yalu very exactly.

The Ussuri, perhaps the most important of the eastern rivers,
is also a boundary stream, defining a great part of the frontier
between Manchuria and the Maritime Province of Siberia.
Thus Russia has the same interest in the Ussuri that Japan has
in the Yalu and T'umen; but the Ussuri has an additional im-
portance inasmuch as its lower course is navigable by steamers,
which call in from the Amur. The valley of the Ussuri,
though potentially rich, is little developed, and the river itself
is the key to future development; for so impenetrable are the
approaches overland from the south that Chinese colonists
travel all the way down the Sungari by river steamer and
around by the Amur to the mouth of the Ussuri, whence
they work upstream southward. The Ussuri is navigable as
far up as Hulin, and probably by very shallow draught boats
all the way to the Hsink'ai lake.

The Sungari and Amur are, however, the most splendid
waterways of the country. The Sungari is navigable from its
mouth up to Harbin by paddle-wheel steamers, and by some-
what lighter vessels as high as Petuna a total distance of
about five hundred and ninety miles. From the junction of
Sungari and Nonni, very light vessels and launches can navi-
gate on the Nonni up to Tsitsihar, and on the Sungari up to
and beyond Kirin city; and beyond these points both rivers
can be used by wooden barges for considerable further dis-
tances. The Amur, formed by the junction of the Shilka and
Arghun, is navigable from a point on the Shilka all the
way to the sea, a total distance of about fifteen hundred miles.

RACE AND CULTURE 23

Russian interest in the Amur and its tributaries is obvious.
The upper course of the Amur forms the boundary between
Siberia and Chinese territory. Of the two major affluents the
Chinese hold one bank of the Ussuri and the entire Sungari-
Nonni system. The Russians, however, have a railway skirt-
ing their side of both the Amur and Ussuri, which enables
them to offset many of the difficulties of upstream navigation,
and to supplement the economic advantages of the rivers.
Above all, the Russians hold the entire lower course of the
Amur, below the infall of the Ussuri, which gives them
absolute control of communication with the sea. This, and
the better mechanical equipment of the Russians, gives them
a strong initial advantage in the future development of the
whole Amur basin, in Chinese as well as in Russian territory.
It is important to note that they are also favored by the di-
rection of flow of the whole northern river system out of
Chinese territory into Russian territory.

In the circumstances it is not surprising that river trade
is greatly retarded by Russo-Chinese political questions. The
steamer trade was at first entirely in Russian hands, and by
treaty agreement river navigation was restricted to vessels
under the Chinese or Russian flag. Later, as the Chinese began
to realize the commercial possibilities of steam navigation,
Russian-built ships were acquired by Chinese. The Chinese
interest was increased during the period of the war in Europe
and the Russian revolution, when Russian activities declined,
and this was followed up by official pressure designed to ex-
clude Russians from the right of navigation. In 1923 this
pressure was brought to bear even on the vessels of the Chinese
Eastern Railway, and Russian navigation is now in abeyance,
on the Sungari, although non-Soviet Russians in Chinese em-
ploy still dominate the technical side of navigation. As a re-
sult of the anomalous international position between Russia

24 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

and China, Chinese vessels now call only at the Chinese ports
on the Ussuri and Amur, and Russian vessels only at the
Russian ports.

Russia, however, still retains potentially the better position.
During the summer, sea-going vessels can ascend the Amur
as far as Habarovsk, in wholly Russian territory, below the
junction of the Ussuri and Amur; but it is doubtful if sea-
going vessels could ever reach a port in Chinese territory. As
the most valuable present and future freights of the Amur,
Sungari, and Ussuri are heavy and bulky agricultural prod-
ucts, and timber, the most economic procedure would be to
float them downstream to Habarovsk, with a minimum ex-
pense of time and fuel, and there load them direct into sea-
going freighters. Timber, in particular, could be shipped
direct from Habarovsk, whereas it is economically out of the
question to haul it upstream in any quantity to the Chinese
railways. The Chinese, however, naturally prefer to tow grain
in barges nearly four hundred miles upstream along the Sun-
gari, from Fuchin to Harbin, transfer it to the railway and ship
it out through Dairen thus monopolizing the river trade, al-
though in the railway freight they have to concede a half in-
terest to the Russian share in the Chinese Eastern Railway
and the whole of the freight charges of the Japanese-owned
South Manchuria Railway; besides which the port of Dairen
is dominated by Japan. There is no doubt, however, that the
Russians are anxious to recover, and pressing diplomatically
to obtain the rights of navigation on the Sungari and of
touching at Chinese ports on the Ussuri and Amur which
would clinch their strategic domination of all northern
Manchuria. 1

The greatest economic weakness of Manchuria is its lack

1 Russian vessels have now begun to call again at Chinese ports on the Amur,
Sungari, and Ussuri; but whether this agreement is temporary or permanent, and
what are the formal terms of agreement, I do not know.

RACE AND CULTURE 25

of ports. The state of economic development favors the ex-
port of raw produce and the import of machinery, which,
owing to the lack of heavy manufactures in China, must
necessarily come from abroad. The physical lay of the land
favors a radiation of trade from the heart of the country to-
ward every frontier. Yet the ports are not only few and, in
view of the potential trade, insufficient, but are overwhelm-
ingly dominated by foreign nations. The only ports of the
north with sea communications are Habarovsk, Nikolaievsk
and Vladivostok. These are in Russian territory. The two
former, on the Amur, are favored by the flow of the Amur,
Sungari, and Ussuri, while the latter is not only fed by the
Russian railways which skirt the whole length of the Russo-
Manchurian frontier, and in a position to attract the trade
of a great part of Heilungchiang and northern Kirin, when-
ever cross-frontier trade is reopened, but is also in direct com-
munication with the Chinese Eastern Railway, in which
Russia is a partner. The Russian interest in the Chinese East-
ern Railway, in fact, makes it possible even now to export
Manchurian products through Vladivostok, in spite of the sus-
pension of trade across the frontier at other points.

While Russia thus holds a mortgage on the future trade
of the* north, the most important single factor in the present
trade of all three provinces is the port of Dairen, in the part
of Manchuria occupied as a Leased Territory by Japan. Al-
though Dairen is an Open Port, with Customs administered
by the Chinese Maritime Customs Administration, all car-
goes, in and out, must perforce pass over the Japanese-owned
South Manchuria Railway. This railway not only penetrates
as far as Ch'angch'un, and monopolizes transport as far west
as Mukden, but is fed by Chinese railways in some of which
the South Manchuria Railway holds a financial interest, and
through connection with the Chinese Eastern Railway taps

26 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

the trade of the north. It also has branches feeding the ports
of Antung and Yingk'ou (Newchwang).

Of the other southern ports, Port Arthur, also in the Leased
Territory, is of little importance to trade, but as a naval base
is one of the keys to the strong Japanese naval position in re-
gard to the coasts of Korea, Manchuria and North China.
Antung, on the Korean frontier at the mouth of the Yalu,
and fed by the Yalu and a branch of the South Manchuria
Railway (besides being in communication with the Korean
railway system), is also dominated by Japan. Yingk'ou or
Newchwang, though served by a branch of the South Man-
churia Railway and a branch of the Peking-Mukden Railway,
is handicapped by shallow water and the comparative poverty
of the Liao as a supplementary inland waterway, and is
closed by ice in winter.

The construction, now under way, of a port at Hulutao, to
be fed by the Peking-Mukden Railway and its allied systems,
proves that the Chinese are fully awake to the fact that their
political sovereignty in Manchuria needs the reinforcement
of an all-Chinese port. The funds for the construction of
Hulutao are derived from the Peking-Mukden Railway; but
although this railway was originally built with capital bor-
rowed from a British syndicate, which until the loan is paid
off retains a certain measure of financial control, the Chinese
have demonstrated, by the allotment of the Hulutao con-
struction contract to a Dutch syndicate, that they do not
intend to allow the extension of British interests to the sub-
sidiary enterprises of the Railway; moreover in allotting funds
for the construction of Hulutao, they ignored the claims of
certain British creditors of the railway, who have not been paid
for material supplied.

Even a new port at Hulutao, however, will not radically
alter the balance of international political and economic in-

RACE AND CULTURE 27

terests in Manchuria. The trade returns indicate clearly that
both the railway and port facilities of Manchuria are in-
adequate to cope with expanding trade, and that the revenues
of the Chinese Eastern and South Manchurian Railways can
actually increase at the same time that quantities of new
freights are being hauled by Chinese railways. Thus Hulutao
will not be able to compete with either Russian or Japanese
interests, but will merely take a share of the increasing trade
of the future. This is the "official" Japanese view, as I under-
stand it. As for the Chinese view, there can be no doubt that
when the construction of the port at Hulutao was undertaken,
it was hoped and believed that China could thus impair, and
perhaps finally destroy, the Japanese economic domination
over Manchuria. An important threat to Japanese interests in
the development of Hulutao is that the port will remain open
all winter, while the Amur ports, Vladivostok and Yingk'ou,
the other rivals to Dairen, are closed by ice.

These considerations make it plain that China may never
be in a position to disregard the fundamental advantages of
position which Russia and Japan hold in respect of access to
Manchuria. It is equally plain that one of the capital problems
faced by the Chinese in Manchuria, a problem of statecraft
as well as of economic policy, and umbilically connected with
colonization and industrial exploitation, is the development
of communications by rail, water and road which will offset/
the advantages which the northern waterways offer to Russia
and control of the sea to Japan, and the favored positions
which Russia and Japan actually hold within Manchurian
territory, through Russian participation in the northern ar-
terial railway and Japanese ownership of the southeastern
arterial railway respectively.

That the Chinese are endeavoring to deal with the problem
is evidenced by the energetic railway construction which has

28 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

already placed Manchuria far ahead of any territory of equal
size in China. It is impossible in the present discussion to go
into the details of railway problems in Manchuria, but it is
relatively easy to indicate the position schematically.

The British and Dutch interests in the Peking-Mukden
Railway and the port of Hulutao respectively are relatively
unimportant. In both cases the foreign government has no
other interest than the diplomatic protection of the interests
of its nationals who have made the investment. While the
original contract for the construction of the Peking-Mukden
Railway provided that the investing syndicate should nomi-
nate British nationals to certain positions of administrative
and financial authority, the present trend both of Chinese
methods and British Government policy indicates that the
investors will have to rely more and more on Chinese good
faith, and less and less on positive control.

The Russian and Japanese positions are radically different,
in that they represent direct national, governmental interest,
operating merely for convenience under the form of cor-
porations.

The Japanese position derives from treaties following on
the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars, subsequently
modified both by treaties between the three governments, and
by agreements entered into by the South Manchuria Railway
acting as a corporation. The South Manchuria Railway was
designed originally to define and dominate a Japanese sphere
of influence in southern Manchuria. One of the categorical
safeguards was a stipulation that no railway should be built,
with either Chinese or foreign capital, parallel to the South
Manchuria system. No distance at which a parallel railway
could be constructed was defined, and the treaty was, in fact,
invoked at one time when a project was under discussion for
building a railway hundreds of miles distant, from Kalgan

RACE AND CULTURE 29

to Urga. The Japanese Government has never explicitly aban-
doned this treaty safeguard, but the South Manchuria Rail-
way, as a corporation, has in fact made liberal concessions,
both in allowing the construction of Chinese lines and in
financing them.

The Russian position also is founded on treaties following
the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars. This position
has also been modified by subsequent treaties between the
three governments, and by agreements between the Chinese
Eastern and South Manchuria Railways as corporations. The
Russian position is additionally complicated by events follow-
ing on the fall of the old Russian Government and the estab-
lishment of a new one, by the present anomalous and ill-
defined international relations between Russia and China,
by often conflicting negotiations between different Chinese
interests and the Railway as a corporation, and between the
Russian Government and the provincial authorities of Man-
churia, and the Russian Government and the Central Govern-
ment of China, whose unstable authority and interests some-
times coincide and sometimes conflict with those of the
provinces.

The international factors, acting sometimes in the way of
pressure and at other times in the way of more or less inert
resistance, have made it necessary for the Chinese to work
within a sort of fence. Although the Chinese have necessarily
proceeded very often by temporary expedients, yet there has
been a certain continuity and drift in their policy, as a result
of which it can now be observed that a sort of solid Chinese
core in Manchuria has been formed, with a " Japanese front"
on the southeast and east, a "Russian front" on the northeast
and north, and a "Mongol front" (complicated by Russian
interests) on the west. Although Chinese colonization and
many Chinese exploiting interests have spread beyond the

30 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

railway fence of the Chinese Eastern and South Manchuria
lines, yet these lines form recognizable frontiers impeding
the full effect of Chinese expansion. The Chinese core which
they envelop from east to north is the scene of the most con-
fident Chinese activity, and by inevitable consequence the
"Mongol front" on the west, where non-Chinese interests are
least positively defined, is the outlet toward which Chinese
expansionism is pressing most assertively.

The railways of the "core" of Manchuria, in spite of certain
Japanese financial interests which extend the influence of the
South Manchuria Railway, are dominated by the most solid
expansionist force of China. Their function is to round the
southern escarpment of the Inner Mongolia plateau, by way
of the Peking-Mukden trunk line and then, reaching north-
westward, to approach the Hsingan range and the grasslands
of Outer Mongolia. In so doing they turn the flank of the
Gobi desert, which has always been the chief bar to a decisive
Chinese expansion direct from the south, and potentially open
up a vast new scope for Chinese action both in Manchuria
and Mongolia, thus reorienting the triple interests of China,
Japan and Russian in northeastern Asia. Thus it can be seen
how devastating was the effect of the Japanese occupation of
Mukden and other towns in September 1931. It completely
shattered the Chinese "core" of Manchuria, and the military
and administrative organization of Chinese expansionism.
It virtually eliminated Chinese initiative in the affairs of
Manchuria, from within Manchuria, and with it the buffer
between Japan and Russia.

CHAPTER II

THE "RESERVOIR" OF TRIBAL INVASIONS
OLD NON-CHINESE POPULATIONS

THE modern Chinese colonization of Manchuria began in
the eighteen hundred and nineties, following on measures
adopted by the Imperial (Manchu) Government, which modi-
fied the theory and practice of land tenure, and imparted in
important respects a fresh character to the process of colo-
nization. The rate of colonization did not however accelerate
for many years, and it was only about 1926-28 that spectacular
newspaper accounts of the "millions" migrating from China
to Manchuria began to draw popular attention in the
Western world.

When the modern period began, population elements in
Manchuria were comparatively static, and their distribution
was well defined. In Liaoning province, east of the Liao river,
was a Chinese population, typically Chinese in culture, but
with a peculiar social status, owing to the large numbers of
Han Chun or Chinese Bannermen, politically and socially
identified with the Manchus. Numbers of true Manchus were
also settled in this part of Liaoning (Fengtien) province.

It may be as well at this point to clarify to some extent the use
of the terms "Banner" and "Bannerman " The Manchu Ban-
ner may have been originally the military levy of a particular
tribe, contributed to the army of all the Manchus. Later it
became a military administrative unit, the tribal association
being replaced by a regional association. In every suitable

32 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

region, a system of eight Banners was formed. As young men
reached the military age of sixteen, and passed the military
tests, they were assigned to Banners. Thereafter they drew a
military subsidy, and could be called upon for active service.
Each family was associated with a Banner, but the Banner was
not a tribe, and members of the same clan might be associated
with different Banners. For instance, the "Bordered Blue
Banners" of Tsitsihar, Kirin, and Peking, respectively, had no
connection with one another, tribal or administrative.

In Southern Manchuria, when the Manchus began to en-
roll Chinese troops, they introduced the same regional
militia system of series of eight Banners. In such regions,
where both Mahchu and Chinese troops were enrolled, each
banner would have two "battalions" (so to speak) one Man-
chu, one Chinese. In Peking, each Banner was in reality a
triple formation, with Manchu, Mongol, and Chinese "bat-
talions." In the Chahar region of Mongolia, which came
under the Manchus by conquest, not by alliance, the Mongol
princes were deposed and the Manchu Banner system sub-
stituted.

The Mongol Banner in regions which came over to the
Manchus by alliance, or where the conquest was not thorough
enough for the Manchus to depose the princes, is something
quite different. It is a compromise between the Mongol tribal
system and the Manchu military system. Hence it still retains
a tribal connotation which the Manchu and Chinese Banners
did not have. This type of Mongol Banner has always re-
mained an hereditary tribal unit, ruled by an hereditary chief.

In the western part of Liaoning was a Mongol population.
These Mongols also extended into the western plain of Kirin
province (west of Ch'angch'un) and northward toPetuna and
Tsitsihar. The historic boundary between Mongols on the
west and Chinese and Manchus on the east was the Willow

"RESERVOIR" OF TRIBAL INVASIONS 33

Palisade, which ran from north of the Great Wall through
Ichou and Fak'umen and Ssup'ingkai, then a little east of
Ch'angch'un and on to the Sungari. At Tungchiangtze,
where the Palisade crossed the Liao, a branch went off east and
southeast, defining the most ancient "pale" of Chinese pene-
tration and settlement. The Mongols west of the Willow
Palisade derived from the migrations of the great Mongol con-
quests in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

In Kirin province, not, in the first place, in the Sungari
valley but in the valley of the Mutanchiang or Hurka, as far
north as its junction with the Sungari at Sanhsing, was the
true country of the Manchus. Their oldest centers were at
Sanhsing and Ninguta, from which they later spread to the
upper Sungari in the region of Kirin city, and still later, with
the growth of their military power, all along the western
slopes of the Ch'angpaishan until they overlooked and dom-
inated Liaoning province, where they established a capital
at Mukden in the first half of the seventeenth century, prior
to their conquest of China.

The Manchus appear never to have penetrated in numbers
east of the Ch'angpaishaii. This eastern country, not only in
Kirin but in Liaoning (Fengtien, or Mukden Province) was
"old Korean." The Koreans must once have been well es-
tablished, and the popular name for ruins of cities and for-
tifications is still "Korean cities"; but they left little ethnic
trace, and their withdrawal must have been practically com-
plete by the rise of the Manchus at the beginning of the
seventeenth century. Only between the Ch'angpaishan and
the Yalu, in heavily forested, mountainous country, is it prob-
able that Koreans then lingered; and they, from the nature of
the country, cannot have been numerous. The establishment
of Korean settlers in eastern Fengtien (Hsingching region)
and eastern Kirin (Hunchun region and Ussuri valley) is a

34 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

modern phenomenon. The Koreans, however, did leave cer-
tain cultural traces, notably in the type of dwelling house,
and it is a question, not clear but all the more interesting,
how many of the non-Chinese characteristics of the Manchus
may be of Korean derivation. The question is further com-
plicated by the fact that the Tungus, from whom the Manchus
were differentiated at a late period, appear to have had an
early influence in Korea.

In northern Kirin and Heilungchiang, in the valleys of the
Ussuri and lower Sungari, and generally speaking all the
forested lands draining to the Amur, as well as in the Nonni
valley, were tribes racially connected with the Tungus and
thus with the Manchus. After the rise of the Manchu power,
the kinship of most of these tribes was recognized by in-
cluding them as auxiliaries in the Manchu military Banner
organization, under the designation of New Manchus. These
tribes were never numerous, and the chief interest of their
distribution is historic and schematic.

In the Nonni valley, from the lip of the Amur basin south-
ward to Tsitsihar, were tribes that showed a merging of the
characteristics of Tungus hunters (originally, most of them,
without doubt reindeer owners as well) and Mongol pastoral
nomads. Thus the Solons, who within living memory ex-
tended as far down the Hsingan range as the T'ao river head-
waters, where the town of Solun preserves their name, now
survive as only a few wretched families except west of the
Hsingan, where the almost completely Mongolized "Mongol-
Solon" would hardly be recognized as kin of the original
Solon forest hunters. Of the mixed Mongol-Tungus tribes
the most important were the Daghurs, whose ready acceptance
of Manchu influence made them important instruments of
Manchu policy. As Manchu Bannermen some of them mi-
grated west of the Hsingan, where they are still important

"RESERVOIR" OF TRIBAL INVASIONS 35

as officials and traditional leaders among the predominantly
Mongol population.

Finally, west of the Hsingan, in a region so large and im-
portant as to continue at the present time a recognizable po-
litical sub-division of Heilungchiang province, is the Barga
country. In the fringe of forest west of the Hsingan water-
shed a few Tungusic elements are still distinguishable, but
the great plains are decidedly Mongol, and political ques-
tions are Mongol-Chinese-Russian. The Mongols of Barga
are tribally and politically separate both from the Eastern
Mongols of Liaoning province and the Mongols of Outer
Mongolia. Their country is a sort of bay of Mongolia, which
appears to have been comparatively little affected by the great
upheaval of the Mongol tribes in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, not being swept by the migrations, but receiving
the backwash and sheltering the fragments of many tribes.
There is evidence, in the different structure of the aristocracy
and the comparative weakness of the monastic lama hier-
archy, of the late impact of alien influences. The reluctance of
the Barga tribes, during the recent years of political unrest, to
associate themselves definitely with either Inner or Outer
Mongolia is also the result of long isolation and lack of as-
sociation with the tribal affairs of other groups.

The conglomeration of Barga tribes includes, besides groups
related to the Khalkhas of Outer Mongolia and to the neigh-
boring Leagues of Inner Mongolia, a few descendants of a f a*
western group, the Olot or Jungar Mongols, of whom some
were deported to Barga after the Manchu-Chinese conquest
of Chinese Turkestan. There are also a few Buriats, whose
ancient habitat was east of Lake Baikal in Siberia, who mi-
grated to Barga some generations ago; and there are the
Mongol-Solon, Daghur, and other mixed groups. In recent
years there has been a secondary immigration of Trans-

3 6 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

Baikalian Buriats, dissatisfied with Soviet rule, which further
complicates the interest of Soviet Russia.

The pressing problems of Barga are modern, and date from
the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway, which broke
in on the old isolation. Since the eighteen hundred and nine-
ties and the beginning of Chinese reaction against the advance
of Russia, the Barga tribes have been threatened with sub-
mersion under a wave of Chinese immigration; in face of
which they have distinguished themselves among the "native"
elements in Manchuria by the effectiveness of their resistance.
Several risings, with more or less open support from Russia,
have staved off the Chinese advance, but have by no means
decided the issue. In the effort to break down this resistance
there have been several abortive attempts at asserting a Chinese
"forward policy." It can now be foreseen that the "Barga
question" will become acute again with the progress of the
new Tao-an-Solun Railway, which in time is to be projected
toward the Siberian frontier. This railway, taking off from
the Chinese system in the "core" of Manchuria, will cut off
a large part of Barga from Outer Mongolia, will flank the
Chinese Eastern Railway, and still provide a new route for
Chinese colonists and Chinese troops to support them; for at
present the transport of Chinese troops along the Chinese
Eastern Railway is hampered by recurrent disputes between
the Russian and Chinese interests concerned over the question
of fares to be paid.

THE TRIBES AND THE "RESERVOIRS"

Wherever the old populations and old social conditions of
Manchuria can still be detected, it is easy to discern the effects
of a well-defined historical process; the periodic assault on
China of barbarian tribes from the north, alternating with

"RESERVOIR" OF TRIBAL INVASIONS 37

Chinese reactions which threw back the invaders and ex-
tended Chinese authority and influence into barbarian terri-
tories. Manchuria, sometimes as an appendage of Mongolia,
occasionally through the independent action of Manchurian
tribes, has for more than a score of centuries been concerned
in this cyclical process.

The process itself can be concisely described, for it has fol-
lowed a curiously regular, almost stereotyped course. At
different periods barbarian tribes north of the Great Wall
have descended on China, establishing kingdoms and some-
times empires of greater or less territorial extent. Thus in
the fourth century the Hsiungnu, after capturing two suc-
cessive Chinese emperors, forced the Chinese to move their
capital to the site of Nanking. In the fifth and sixth centuries
the Wei dynasty, founded by the Toba Tatars, ruled a great
part of North China, with its capital first at Ta Tung (North-
ern Shansi) and then at Loyang in Honan. The Tang
dynasty of the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries was
founded with the aid of tribal allies, and its power depended
essentially on its tribal policy north of the Great Wall. In
the tenth and eleventh centuries the Liao (Khitan) dynasty,
originating in Manchuria, conquered China as far as the
Yellow River, with a capital first at Liaoyang in Manchuria
and then at Peking. In the twelfth century the Liao were over-
thrown, not by the Chinese but by another Manchurian horde,
that of the Chin (Niichen), who extended the conquest of
China as far as the Yangtze. The Chin, in turn, were over-
thrown by other barbarians the Mongols, who established
the Yuan dynasty and completed the conquest of China.
The Mongols, under Chinghis himself, had already over-
thrown the Western Hsia or Tangut kingdom (a non-Chinese
state), which had occupied what is now Kansu in North-
western China.

3 8 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

Thus when the purely Chinese Ming dynasty drove out the
Mongols in the fourteenth century, China within the Great
Wall was cleared of tribal dominance for the first time in
many centuries; and even so the Mongols were still so strong
that within a hundred years they were able to return, invade
China and carry the Ming emperor into captivity, holding him
for eight years.

Owing, however, to the fact that each alien dynasty, as it
matured, became more and more Chinese, the reflex action of
Chinese culture north of the Great Wall was never lacking.
Invariably the conquerors took over the Chinese dynastic
model for their ruling families and Chinese forms of govern-
ment for their new territories; and, gradually losing the
characteristics of conquering aliens, became essentially a
Chinese ruling class. Just as invariably, when the power of
the dynasty waned, a Chinese reaction, tinged with racial
animosity, took place. The dynasty was overthrown, the
Chinese power moved north once more, sometimes as far as
the Great Wall, sometimes even north of it, and an effort was
made to define afresh the boundaries between civilization and
barbarism. Whoever seized the power after the overthrow
of the alien dynasty established a new dynasty; and when this
in turn decayed the next invasion from the north swept over
the Great Wall.

During these fluctuations of conquest, a remarkable stratifi-
cation became established, which may be schematically de-
scribed as Great Wall-Inner Mongolia-Outer defense walls-
Gobi-Outer Mongolia. While it is not possible here to go
fully into the profound significance of the Great Wall, it can
be pointed out that the frontier line it represents is the most
ancient and fundamental line of cleavage between a highly
individual civilization and a form of tribal barbarism only
less individual and persistent. It is the country immediately

"RESERVOIR" OF TRIBAL INVASIONS 39

north of the Gr^at Wall which most urgently needs the at-
tention of the historian. This region appears to be considered
most commonly as the area of maximum effect of outward-
spreading Chinese culture. While its historic position in this
respect is obvious enough, it has another function of at least
equal importance. It is the "reservoir" area of the successive
northern invaders of China.

The Manchu conquest demonstrates most clearly a process
which must have accompanied every previous conquest of
the Manchu type. In this "reservoir," dominating the Great
Wall by virtue of the plateau formation of Inner Mongolia,
was repeatedly established a population composed of tribal
followers of the conquest, who remained outside of the con-
quered territory but were identified with the alien dynasty
within the Great Wall. It supplied officials and troops to
participate in the rule of China, and drew from China a great
deal of wealth in the form of subsidies to the tribal chiefs.
The Banner tribes of Inner Mongolia, who extend east-
ward into western Liaoning province, are a living survival
of the "reservoir" system.

North of the "reservoir" lay another great zone, of which
the part most easily recognized at the present day is Outer
Mongolia. Here lay the lands of the "unregenerate," the
tribes which had not participated as allies or auxiliaries of the
conquest in North China. The Gobi from west to east, and
the Hsingan range from south to north, mark the physical
distinction between the "reservoir" and the lands of the un-
regenerate; but the geographical cleavage was emphasized
by a system of frontier defenses, which may still be detected
south of the Gobi and east of the Hsingan. The fact that
these defenses are Chinese in type has led to their being con-
sidered chiefly as outworks of the Great Wall system. Out-
works they were, in truth, during the periods of Chinese as-

40 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

ccndancy; but at every period of the domination of an alien
dynasty in China they became rearguard defenses. For one
of the most important duties of the "reservoir" population,
and the duty which explains why they did not all enter China,
was that of staving off possible rival invasion on the part of
"unregenerate" tribes not associated with the new dynasty.

It cannot even be considered certain that the outer defense
systems were first constructed as outward-facing Chinese
frontiers. Nothing is more obvious than that establishment
in the "reservoir" as privileged tribesmen had a pronounced
effect on the territorial and social organization of the tribes.
It is also beyond dispute that some at least of the ruined cities
of Chinese type which characterize the "reservoir" zone, and
have led to its being considered the region of maximum Chi-
nese impact, were not constructed during periods of Chinese
ascendancy, but were in fact "luxuries" which the tribal chiefs
allowed themselves as part of their share of the spoil of China.
If, as is quite certain, tribes associated with the "reservoir"
system tended to become stabilized and decreasingly nomadic,
while their chiefs tended to convert the prerogatives of chief-
tainship into the powers of a fixed hereditary aristocracy
strongly affected by Chinese ideas, and to build Chinese towns
and import Chinese craftsmen and traders, then it is highly
probable that they also emphasized their new static position
by constructing static defenses of the Chinese type between
themselves and the "unregenerate" tribes.

Naturally, during periods of Chinese ascendancy, these
towns of Chinese type, with partially Chinese populations,
must have tended to become more active centers of the radia-
tion of Chinese influences. It should, however, be a prime
object of future research in Mongolia and Manchuria (and
Chinese Turkestan as well) to determine as clearly as possible
how far the spread of Chinese cultural elements is to be re-

"RESERVOIR" OF TRIBAL INVASIONS 41

garded as an assertive and positive expression of Chinese ad-
vance, and how far as "loot" brought back by the barbarians
themselves. It is even probable that the elements brought by
the Chinese themselves as indispensable and the elements
chosen by the barbarians as forms of plunder can often be
distinguished.

What emerges from all these considerations is a principle
of the very highest importance. The "reservoir" region, both
during periods of barbarian ascendancy and periods of
Chinese ascendancy, is to be regarded as the key to the
sovereignty of North China often of all China. It there-
fore has a regional importance which transcends both its
racial and its cultural importance. However triumphant the
northward spread of Chinese power, any Chinese population
flowing into the "reservoir" region inevitably becomes even
more conscious of the fact that it can now exercise a control
over the affairs of China behind it than that it can press
forward to fresh conquests of barbarian territories. The over-
throw of the Mongol dynasty of the Yuan and the establish-
ment of the Ming was the last great resurgence of the Chinese
power. Yet the Chinese population established in South Man-
churia under the Ming became so regional in consciousness
that it allied itself with the rising Manchu power and turned
back to the conquest of China. Even at the present time, the
disastrous defeats of the Manchurian armies in the quarrel
with Russia over the Chinese Eastern Railway in the winter
of 1929-30 had far less effect on the imagination of the mass
of the population in China than any one of the incursions
within the Great Wall of the racially and culturally Chinese
but regionally Manchurian armies of Chang Tso-lin and his
son Chang Hsiieh-liang not to mention the fact that the
quasi-dynastic succession of political power in Manchuria is
of deep significance. The crucial importance of such a region-

42 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

alism, oriented as it is toward China with a tenacity appar-
ently not to be overcome by any rise of nationalistic feeling,
can hardly be exaggerated in a study of Chinese colonization
beyond the Great Wall.

MONGOL, MANCHU AND CHINESE

The historical distinction between Manchuria and Mongo-
lia is not nearly so sharp as that of modern times. The strati-
fication of defense lines, "reservoir" and outer unregenerate
territory is more easily illustrated by Mongolian examples,
because Manchuria is the dead-end of the great migration
ground of Eurasia. In Manchuria, of necessity, the currents
of migration have turned and eddied. There is a little-known
and almost uninvestigated frontier fortification which is a
key to the warping of the historical strata. It runs from
some point north of Jehol, follows the eastern watershed of
the Hsingan, and extends almost to the Amur perhaps all
the way. In spite of the extreme northern extension of this
wall, probably to be explained by the far northward reach of
power under the Liao and Chin dynasties of the tenth and
twelfth centuries both of which originated in Manchuria
the "reservoir" area of Manchuria, roughly and on the
average of history, may be defined as all of Liaoning (Feng-
tien) and Kirin provinces lying south of latitude forty-six
degrees North. This "reservoir" is contiguous with Inner
Mongolia, though it reaches farther to the north, and has the
same historical function. Northernmost Kirin and all of
Heilungchiang, which lie north of this latitude, are an ancient
no-man's-land, with an historical importance comparable to
that of Outer Mongolia.

The peculiarity of "reservoir" Manchuria is the triple
balance that was established there, as an essential preliminary

"RESERVOIR" OF TRIBAL INVASIONS 43

to the Manchu conquest of China, between Mongols, Man-
chus and Chinese. Without going into detail, it may be
stated that the Manchu military power was based on an alli-
ance between Manchus and Mongols, and an amalgamation
between the Manchus and the highly "regional" Chinese of
the "reservoir." This early grouping was perpetuated in re-
gional sub-divisions which had much of the character of
"spheres of interest," which persisted up to the beginning of
the modern period, which can still be traced, and which had
an important bearing on local conceptions of the bases of
land tenure and social organization.

One of the remarkable points of interest of the outer de-
fense walls of the ancient "reservoir" is the fact that, though
they are locally attributed to different dynasties or culture-
heroes, like Yao Fei (Yiieh Fei) or Chin Wu-chu, or Chin-
ghis Khan they almost everywhere are still recognized as
tribal or sub-tribal boundaries. It is significant that the Mon-
gols concerned in the Manchu Conquest (whose heirs in
modern Manchuria are the Banners of the Cherim Chao-uda
and Chosotu Leagues) held a territory south of the Gobi and
east of the Hsingan and the Hsingan Outer Wall. On the east,
the boundary between them and the Chinese and Manchus
(confirmed under the Manchu dynasty) was the Willow
Palisade. Thus they belonged not to the outermost barba-
rians of the "unregenerate" lands, but to the ancient tribal
"reservoir"; in fact they were, in the main, descendants of the
Mongols of the Yuan dynasty, who had been displaced in
China by the Ming. For this reason (a fact never sufficiently
emphasized) there were elements of hostility in their alli-
ance with the Manchus. There was in fact a close race for
power between Manchus and Mongols, and the later Manchu
policy, throughout the "reservoir," was confronted with the
double problem of preserving the usefulness of the Mongols

44 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

as military auxiliaries, while preventing the recrudescence of
a Mongol power that might rival their own. Thus by trick-
ery and coercion, and occasionally by planting Chinese col-
onies, they edged the Mongols away from certain strategic
points overlooking the Great Wall barrier; but on the whole
they supported the tribalism of the Mongols and maintained
the integrity of Mongol tribal domains. Thus the Mongols
even in our own time continue to be a tribal people, while the
Manchus long ago became Chinese; and not only is it difficult
to distinguish Manchus from Chinese, even in the remotest re-
gions, but the very bases of distinction, from a comparatively
early period, ceased to be racial and became wholly social.

The Manchus were, from the beginning, without either
the strong tribal consciousness or the strong historical tradi-
tions of the Mongols. They appear to have filtered in from
the outer no-man's-land to the "reservoir" and though they
endowed themselves offhand with a tradition of descent from
the Niichen-Chin, 1 they rose to power with such rapidity
that they never thoroughly absorbed the tradition and spirit
of the "reservoir"; they rather created a new, modified "reser-
voir"-regional tradition of their own.

This very immaturity facilitated their extraordinarily rapid
and thorough assumption of Chinese characteristics. Indeed
nothing could be more evident (though the fact is usually
given very little weight) than that the Manchus, from a very
early period, not only looked on China as a country to con-
quer, but on Chinese civilization as something to aspire to.

1 While there was no political continuity between the Niichen and the Manchus,
there was a certain racial kinship, in that they both derived from the same
general Tungusic stock. Out of this tribal group the Niichen emerged, to found
the Chin dynasty; on the fall of the dynasty, at least part of them fell back into
the wilderness and merged again with the tribes. Centuries later the Manchus
emerged from the same tribal group; and had it not been for the impact of the
West, breaking up the cycle of Chinese frontier history, the most northerly of the
Manchus left in Manchuria would, on the fall of the dynasty, have relapsed in
the same way into a "tribal" state.

"RESERVOIR" OF TRIBAL INVASIONS 45

There is some reason to suppose that the Manchus derived
from a stock which originally owned reindeer, but lost the
reindeer on moving south. If this is so, then the necessity
of reorganization consequent on the loss of the reindeer
economy may explain in part their rapid development toward
the Chinese standard.

The Chinese then in southern Manchuria must have been
in the main the immediate descendants of those who had
participated in the last great Chinese expansion, under the
Ming; although the Chinese foothold in southernmost Man-
churia was already very old, and the larger body must there-
fore itself have been informed to a certain extent by the
tradition of the oldest local Chinese elements. While char-
acteristically Chinese in culture and social organization, they
had taken on a strong "frontier" color, which is quite under-
standable in the light of the historical forces already eluci-
dated. Thus they were, for their part, willing to accept the
authority, and identify themselves with the drive, of the
rising and aggressive Manchu group, which promised them
a share of the power and wealth to be garnered in China
the rich land, the land of civilization and luxury; a land
whose promise altogether overshadowed any promise of
growth and expansion toward the barbarian wilderness.

It has never been sufficiently emphasized how Chinese the
Manchus were by the time they entered China. Still less has
it been realized how far they were outnumbered, in Man-
churia itself, by the Chinese, or how easy it would have been
for these Manchurian Chinese, had there been any genuine
social motive power urging them toward outward expansion,
to exterminate the Manchu tribes on their first appearance.
Yet, in point of fact, Chinese were willingly incorporated,
from the very beginning, in the Manchu military system, and
thoroughly identified themselves, politically, with the Man-

46 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

chus. No one who has visited both the old Manchu and old
Chinese regions of Manchuria and noticed the number, dis-
tribution and known age of towns and villages can doubt
that, long before the Conquest, the largest numerical element
in the Manchu armies must have been Chinese.

The Manchus, for their part, had taken on a thoroughly
Chinese color. Their two emperors who ruled from Mukden
before the entry into China were emperors in the Chinese
manner. It is not too much to say that the final Manchu con-
quest of China was less an alien invasion than the triumph of
the strongest regional faction in a colossal Chinese civil war.
This is borne out by the fact that the Manchus actually passed
through the Great Wall as a result of negotiation, and in
alliance with one Chinese faction against another, which had
already desecrated the Ming tombs and occupied Peking,
where the last Ming emperor had hanged himself. It is
further borne out by the rapidity and success with which the
Manchus assumed the administration of China and carried
it on in the Chinese manner.

It cannot be doubted that the racial character of certain
laws of privilege passed by the Manchus has been greatly
overemphasized. There was a residuum of racial feeling in
some of these laws, but all of them, in operation, had an
almost purely social function; and in any case their nominal
racial character is vitiated by the fact that, from the begin-
ning, Chinese Bannermen were counted as Manchus. The
Banners themselves were purely a military, never a racial
formation. The organization of distinct Chinese Banners
must have been due initially to the overwhelming preponder-
ance of Chinese in the southern part of Manchuria, who asso-
ciated themselves politically with the Manchus; and although
thereafter Manchu and Chinese Banners continued to be
found frequently side by side, there were no grave distinctions

"RESERVOIR" OF TRIBAL INVASIONS 47

between the races. Not only was intermarriage free (between
Manchus and Chinese Bannermen), but it was certainly pos-
sible for a Chinese Bannerman, moving north into a district
so preponderantly Manchu that no Chinese Banners were
maintained, to change his registration to a Manchu Banner;
although technically the change of registration was sup-
posed to be only temporary. Thus the distinction between the
Bannermen as a group and non-Bannermen as a group in-
cluded Chinese among the privileged as well as among the
unprivileged. In discussing "Manchu" history, the term
"Bannerman" should in the great majority of cases be substi-
tuted for the term "Manchu"; and if this were done, the
social intention of many laws and privileges would become
clearer.

Thus, in the case of laws prohibiting Manchus from inter-
marrying with Chinese, it ought to be much better known
that in fact there was no restriction on marriage between
Manchus and Chinese Bannermen, and that at an early period
Manchus began to marry non-Banner Chinese girls, although
not giving their own daughters in marriage to non-Banner
Chinese men. The laws forbidding Bannermen to engage
in trade or agriculture 2 had the same intention as the mar-
riage laws; the maintenance of a self-conscious class associated
with the dynasty.

Among the most conspicuous Manchu laws were those
restricting the immigration of Chinese into regions outside
the Great Wall, and especially forbidding women to pass
beyond this traditional frontier. Undoubtedly many indi-
vidual Manchus felt that such laws maintained their privi-
leged position in the "reservoir"; but equally there is no doubt
that these laws, far from striking the generality of Chinese as

2 Manchus within the "reservoir" in Manchuria, especially in Kirin, continued
of course to engage in agriculture; these laws applied only to garrisons in China.

48 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

oppressive, satisfied the underlying feeling of Chinese state-
craft, with which the Manchus had entirely identified them-
selves. The very nature of the Great Wall and the outer
frontier fortifications was defensive. Throughout history it
can be seen that the fundamental aim of Chinese statecraft
was to control the border territories, not to occupy them.
Colonies were planted always as expedients to control strate-
gic points. There was no general urge toward the complete
occupation of outlying territory; for a general spread of pop-
ulation toward the north would have upset the balance of the
State, which was identified with a very ancient drift toward
the south and east. The north was, in general, the rear; only
exceptionally the front.

LAND TENURE AND TRIBAL ORGANIZATION

, While there has apparently been a revolution in the Chinese
feeling toward northward expansion, the effect on basic
notions of land tenure of the different social organization of
Mongols, Manchus and Chinese can still be detected, and has
an important bearing on the methods of colonial expansion
in the different "spheres" of the ancient "reservoir."'

The relation of Mongol tribe to Mongol land emphasizes
the profound cleavage between Mongols and Chinese. Un-
doubtedly the basic feeling of the Mongols is that the land
belongs to the whole tribe. Neither individuals nor the chief
may establish a prescriptive claim to personal ownership of
any part of the land. Even the tribal ownership is probably
to be understood according to a psychology different from
that involved in any modern "state" ownership. We have un-
doubtedly to deal with ancient pure nom'adic instinct,
although the Mongols are now no more than semi-nomadic.
The Mongol attitude toward the land is guided by an instinc-

"RESERVOIR" OF TRIBAL INVASIONS 49

tive reluctance to identify people with land. It seeks to
gratify the feeling that the tribe ought, on occasion, to be able
simply to pick up and move off, flatly abandoning the old
land. Except where tribal frontiers are defined by ancient
walls, which basically do not govern the tribe as a tribe, but
the tribe in its relation to China, even Mongol frontiers are
curiously inexact. They are marked erratically by landmarks
at conspicuous points, and govern, in the last analysis, not
limits of ownership, but relations of war and peace. To pass
between two of the landmarks of a tribe is not, essentially, to
encroach on its land, but to challenge its freedom of move-
ment.

When a tribe comes within the "reservoir," however, the
attitude toward boundaries is necessarily modified, because
it occupies thenceforth a "station" governed by the relation-
ship with China. When the tribe is an auxiliary ally of an
alien dynasty ruling in China, the machinery of recruiting
tribal levies requires at least a rough knowledge of the fixed
distribution of population according to territory. In order,
therefore, to regularize the relations between the sovereign
dynasty and the "reservoir" tribe, there is a distinct tendency
to transform the chieftain, originally the leader of a horde,
with powers fluctuating according to necessity, into a petty
territorial princeling. This tendency, however, is not a mani-
festation of inward, spontaneous tribal feeling, but is pro-
duced by the pressure of its external relations. Thus we find
that in modern times there is a distinct cleavage between^the
interests of princes and tribes, and that the closer the relations
between the tribe and China the more stable and regular are
the functions, rights and powers of the prince.

Under the Manchu dynasty, the princely families and the
religious hierarchy were the elements most easily modified
into regular channels of intercourse between the tribal "reser-

5 o MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

voir" and the civilized government of China. When colonies
were planted to assure Manchu control of the passes over-
looking the Great Wall, the necessary negotiations were con-
ducted through the princes; and following this precedent
Chinese colonization at the present time in Mongol lands
continues to be regulated by negotiation between Chinese
officials and Mongol princes or high ecclesiastical authorities.
The inevitable consequence is that the princes play the double
part of leaders in the occasional rebellions against China, and
of profiteers who, when resistance is futile, take payment
from the Chinese for the cession of tribal land, to the detri-
ment of the tribe as a whole, making use of a kind of spurious
title to territorial sovereignty which is only a modern fiction.

At the same time the older instinct still preserves the abhor-
rence of individual ownership of land within the territory
occupied by the tribe. The idea that it is "impious" to culti-
vate land is merely a late "rational" explanation of the innate
aversion for permanent, fixed identification of man and land.
Thus historically and at the present time the Chinese pene-
trating into a region where tribal administration has not yet
been replaced by direct Chinese administration is forced to
modify his activities to conform with Mongol ideas. The
result is that the Chinese frontiersman of the Mongol frontier
is quite different, socially, from the frontiersman of the old
Chinese and Manchu spheres within the Manchurian "reser-
voir."

The attitude of the Manchus toward the land was from the
beginning essentially different. In the first place, even during
the generally postulated nomadic period of their history,
they were forest nomads, hunters and fishers; and it is much
easier for the nomad of this type to establish a fixed holding
than it is for the pastoral nomad with a "vested interest" in
valuable herds which require at the minimum a winter and

"RESERVOIR" OF TRIBAL INVASIONS 51

a summer range. The Manchus, at the time they emerge into
history, appear to have had a loose social organization of
villages by the side of streams in forested country. They had
lived by fishing and hunting, before they began to practice
conquest as a form of exploitation, and the garden-patch
agriculture, found on the edges of their villages, though
apparently it had been practiced for a considerable period,
had not risen to a more than ancillary status.

The clan was the most important unit, notably for the
control of marriage; but members of the same clan lived in
different villages, and this weakened the. importance of the
villages, and of the identification of society and locality.
Under such conditions, land ownership can hardly have
been of great importance, especially since land was both rich
and plentiful along the streams. Nor was their relation to
"wild" land the same as that of a tribal people like the Mon-
gols. The intrusion of one pastoral tribe on the lands of
another, or even on lands merely used by them when in mi-
gration, does not necessarily mean the eating up of pastures
of which they stand in imperative need for their flocks, but
it does mean interference with their scope of movement and
control of their flocks. Among a people of riparian villages,
on the other hand, hunting parties that strike away from the
river settlements may well converge on the same group or
range of hills, and the general interest is therefore best served
by the principle that hills, forest and unsettled land are
public, but that private ownership could be established by
the settlement of an individual or a village. The social organ-
ization of the Manchus was obviously one that had not been
so thoroughly worked out as to become rigid. With the asser-
tion of a central military authority, they became at once a
young nation, not a group of tribes, with a tendency to estab-
lish fixed communities in preference to ranges of migration

52 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

and, in consequence, an initial sympathy for Chinese as
against Mongol ideals. The Manchus, from an early period,
worked on two lines of endeavor: to establish a political
superiority over the Chinese, and to raise themselves to an
equality of civilization with the Chinese. The first result
of military unity was the establishment of a dynasty on the
Chinese model, closely followed by the assumption of the
whole Chinese conception of society, both in agricultural
and town communities. The individual ownership of land
was thus confirmed, and it became easy for "wild" lands to
pass from a somewhat vague "public" classification into the
much more definite category of "state" lands, to which a
prescriptive right was affirmed on behalf of the sovereign.

The consequence was that when, in later times, the need
of land was felt by either Manchus or Chinese "squatters," it
was an easy matter to encroach on state lands, the officials
being either indifferent or venial. "Uncontrolled" settlement
at the present time can only be regarded as a continuation of
this old process. It is extra-legal rather than illegal. The
clearing of wild land is tacitly regarded as establishing a
respectable claim. In such cases, as the country fills up and
land boundaries become more important, it is necessary to
legalize the tenure of the squatter; but he is far more likely
to be accommodated by some form of compromise than to
be summarily ejected.

CHAPTER III

EARLY CHINESE EXPANSION: CONQUEST
AND COMPROMISE

CHINESE AND MONGOLS

THE fundamental divergence in social orientation between
Mongol and Manchu explains the fact that two distinct types
of Chinese frontiersman are to be distinguished in the early
Chinese penetration of Manchuria. So essential is the disparity
between Chinese and Mongols that Chinese, when penetrat-
ing the Mongol sphere of the "reservoir," have never become
Mongol in their point of view; even when very decidedly
influenced by the political atmosphere of the "reservoir,",
unless they have "gone native!' On the other hand, when
penetrating the Manchu sphere, it is evident that the Chinese
never had to abandon or modify anything that was essentially
Chinese in its outlook on life. The mark of success was a
status of privilege, and there was nothing in the form of the
privilege, or the way it was exercised, that was anything but
satisfactory from a Chinese point of view.

Because of the gulf between Chinese and Mongols, the
formation of mixed groups has always been an essential
preliminary either to the absorption of Chinese by Mongols,
or of Mongols by Chinese. Mongol borrowings of Chinese
cultural elements are strongly reminiscent of plunder. The
Mongols have always taken from China only what they like,
and used it as they like. Thus quantities of Mongol clothes,
hats, boots, saddles and so forth have for centuries been made

53

54 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

in China; but they have always been made to Mongol speci-
fications, and Mongol costume, in spite of borrowed Chinese
elements, continues to be recognizably Mongol This is in
striking contrast to the manner in which the Manchus modi-
fied their own society in order to conform to Chinese stand-
ards. It is therefore axiomatic in the study of the racial and
cultural migrations north of the Great Wall that every
Chinese element among the Mongols is recognizably alien,
while every pure Manchu element that survived the amal-
gamation with the Chinese is recognizably a survival, and is
felt in the social consciousness as a survival.

The formation of mixed classes intermediate between
Chinese and Mongol, being the only method of bridging the
gap, definitely slowed down the rate of advance of Chinese
colonization, and, paradoxically, though in itself an expedi-
ent for obliterating frontiers, did much to preserve the exist-
ence and meaning of frontiers. The underlying cleavage con-
tinued to affect every kind of activity, official and mercantile,
as well as the progress of agricultural colonization.

Mixed classes are found, for instance, not only among the
advanced squatters and colonists scattered through Inner
Mongolia and western Fengtien, but among caravan traders,
trading-post merchants, pedlars, and interpreters, artisans
and scribes employed by Mongol princes and lamaseries. In
practically every case the Chinese engaged in these frontier
activities either has Mongol blood or, perhaps more fre-
quently, comes from a family which has a definite tradition
of activity among the Mongols. Success, in every case,
depends to an important extent not only on learning the
Mongol language, but on "going native" to a certain degree-
perhaps taking a Mongol wife, certainly conforming to Mon-
gol customs. Something Chinese has to be surrendered. The
importance of this, in view of the intense racial and cultural

CONQUEST AND COMPROMISE 55

self-consciousness of the Chinese, has never been properly
emphasized.

Easy, quick and substantial profits have always been the
essential inducement to any Chinese activity among the Mon-
gols. This has always been necessary, because there has never
been any guarantee of permanency. Caravan traders and
trading-post merchants, like the Jews of medieval Europe,
carried on hereditary businesses on credit terms at usurious
rates, collecting the cattle and wool of the grandson against
the interest owed by the grandfather. At the same time, they
worked without social guarantees. One year they might be
bullying and wheedling, threatening and promising, bent on
the collection of their "just dues"; the next year many of them
might be slaughtered and the rest plundered and driven out;
a year more, and the survivors, with recruits from their fam-
ilies and relations, would be back again: the individual ran
hazards, but the trade was inevitable. In the circumstances it
it easy to understand that the universal Chinese assessment
of the Mongol closely resembles the Jewish estimate of the
Gentile: brutal and violent and unreasonable, yet on the
whole not only honest, but an honest fool.

As for squatters and colonists beyond the actual reach of
definite Chinese control and administration, they could only
cultivate land under Mongol sufferance. They could never
obtain a title to their land. Land ownership was a gauge of
the respective military strength of Mongols and Chinese; if
the Mongols were strong enough, they expelled Chinese who
threatened to establish too definite a claim to the land they
occupied. If the Chinese were strong enough, they ended by
expelling the Mongols. Thus land policy lies at the bottom of
every outbreak of massacre and war between Chinese and
Mongols.
The curious thing is that when the Mongols are expelled

56 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

and the Chinese move in, the true frontiersman, whether
trader or farmer, moves on with the Mongol. That the trader
should do so is easily understandable; that the farmer should
do so can only be explained by the fact that during the period
of uncertainty he has so far "gone native" that his interests
have become largely Mongol. Apart from the fact that he
may have a Mongol wife and half-breed children, he has
commonly accumulated sheep, cattle and horses, the pastur-
ing of which would be inconvenient in a closely settled region.
The original accumulation of property in the Mongol form
might be due in part to the business instinct of the Chinese;
but it must also have been due in part to the necessity for
insurance against the possibility of being forced to discon-
tinue agriculture.

The prevailing ignorance of the lives, methods and tradi-
tions of the traders, frontiersmen and squatters in advance of
the obvious front line of Chinese colonization accounts for the
general impression that the chief phenomenon, when
Chinese meet Mongols, is the turning of Mongols into
Chinese, and has obscured the importance of the formation
of advanced mixed groups. Thus frequent reference is made
to the "agricultural Mongols" of the Chosotu and Chao-uda
Leagues, north of Jehol; notably the Kharachin. In the
eighteen hundred and nineties there was trouble between
Mongols and Chinese over land policy in this region; num-
bers of Mongols were massacred by the Chinese, and several
thousand Kharachin migrated to Cherim League, in western
Liaoning province, where they now form an important agri-
cultural element. In the true manner of the advanced frontier,
they made their own terms with the local tribes, occupying
and cultivating land without being granted title of ownership.
They live in houses of a Chinese type, but frequently possess
also felt yurts put up on permanent foundations; as the felt

CONQUEST AND COMPROMISE 57

wears out it is plastered with mud, and eventually becomes a
round mud hut, which is commonly used as a storeroom,
while the family lives in a house. They pay a portion of the
grain they harvest to the chieftain of the local tribe, to whose
winter food supply it forms a welcome supplement. At the
same time they continue to own livestock, and members of the
family are frequently away from home for long periods,
camping with the flocks. In spite of their houses, they set
great store by a certain measure of Mongol freedom, and
frequently move from one valley to another.

These Mongols are very much mixed in physical type.
They are almost all bilingual from childhood, but the women
are less fluent in Chinese than the men. Their clothes are a
mixture of Mongol and Chinese, but those of the men are
more Chinese, and those of the women more Mongol. Their
family shrines are also a mixture of Mongol and Chinese,
with Chinese elements predominating, as is natural to people
living in houses; but they are as hospitable to lamas as are
other Mongols. Most significant of all, they frequently have a
Chinese family name, as well as Mongol clan name and per-
sonal names. All of these indications point to the fact that
many of them must be descended from Chinese frontiers-
men who "went native"; and whose descendants elected
to migrate with the Mongols rather than remain in the land
permanently occupied by the Chinese advance. 1

Such people are obviously of extraordinary interest in the
history of Chinese colonial expansion. Their social equiva-
lence to such precursors of American and Canadian coloniza-
tion as the coureurs des bois and voyageurs, and the men of

i There are instances* however, of the reversal o this process of "going native."
Thus in the Jehol region numbers of families can be found which were ongmaUy
Chinese, but "turned Mongol" after penetrating well into Mongol temtory.
Since *e overwhelming advance of the Chinese in that region in the last thirty
years, these "Mongol" families are now "turning Chinese.

58 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

the Missouri "fur brigades" is probably closer than that of,
for instance, Oklahoma "land-stampeder" to Shantung
"coolie" immigrant in the modern phase. The influence of
the "reservoir" is to be discerned however in the fact that such
mixed groups function alternatively as a rearguard of the
Mongols and an advanced guard of the Chinese; whereas the
frontiersman of American colonization was prevailingly
conscious of being in the front of the advance, and compara-
tively seldom "went native" completely. The difference is
due to the fact that there is no "reservoir" in American his-
tory, and no alternation of political ascendancy. It is dis-
tinctly noticeable that semi-settled Mongols of the Kharachin
type are frequently massacred or driven out with other Mon-
gols during periods of Chinese aggression; yet at the present
time in the Cherim League, where the advance of Chinese
colonization is producing a bandit class of dispossessed Mon-
gols, bilingual Kharachins are willing to serve in Chinese
irregular levies of cavalry engaged in checking banditry. On
the other side there is no doubt that pastoral Mongols, too,
regard them as a separate class; and also no doubt that in
the event of a Mongol advance they would be found on the
Mongol side. At present, with Chinese colonization proceed-
ing vigorously in Cherim League, I know from personal
observation that the Kharachin form potentially an element
valuable to Chinese administration; for frequently, where
pastoral Mongols take up agriculture under pressure of
Chinese regulations, they turn over the cultivation of the
lands allotted to them to Kharachin tenants or managers, and
continue themselves to be interested primarily in their
livestock.

There is still another type of frontiersman to be found on
the Mongol border. This is the man who first moves in to
land taken over from the Mongols, when the pastoral people

CONQUEST AND COMPROMISE 59

and semi-settled people of the Kharachin type have moved
out. In this class also a marked tradition is to be discerned.
It is a class of farmers, among whom knowledge of the
Mongol language is not common, but who have a special
knowledge of frontier conditions and a special experience in
the cultivation of raw land. They own more livestock than
the farmer working under typical Chinese conditions, and
though land is the basis of their society, they are not rooted
in a particular tract of land. They may move only once in a
generation, but they tend to move. As the land about them
fills up, and values rise, they sell out the land they have devel-
oped and move forward to the next belt of newly opened
land, there to invest once more their experience and special
knowledge. This class, like that of the mixed groups of the
extreme advance, is now being swamped by the mass immi-
gration of people from China proper with little tradition
behind them; but they are of great interest as being the class
probably most nearly comparable to the pioneer of the West-
ern type of colonization.

As for the traders, they are recruited almost entirely from
certain towns many of which now lie far within the borders
of solid Chinese population, and from families which have
maintained for generations a tradition of Mongol trade.
Firms and families often have a history of several centuries
of trade among the Mongols. The young men begin very
early to serve an apprenticeship, in which the acquisition of
the Mongol language plays an important part. Almost in-
variably, when they can afford it, they marry or keep a Mon-
gol woman; but just as regularly, after many years of work
in distant regions, they retire to their own towns to spend
their old age. Their lives are in two compartments, Mongol
and Chinese, and though in the course of their active career
they may often almost completely "go native," they never

60 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

lose the feeling of superiority and distaste, and retire with
relief at the appointed period. It is men of this class, based
on the towns, who dominate the caravan trade also, as owners
and capitalists; but among the caravan men themselves is a
large proportion of the men of the advanced "mixed groups,"
born in the "reservoir" and knowing no other home.

CHINESE AND MANCHUS

It has already been pointed out that the Chinese penetrat-
ing into the Manchu sphere of the "reservoir" was never called
on to make any surrender of the kind implied in "going
native." In addition there was the fact that the different
status of land tenure allowed a more sporadic and spon-
taneous form of penetration and settlement, which must at
an early period have obliterated any idea of a linear "front,"
if it ever existed. Nor was there any basic hostility to be
overcome as between races or instinctive ideas of social order.
It might be thought, from the nominal character of the
Manchu laws discriminating between Manchus and Chinese
and Bannermen and non-Bannermen that Chinese penetrat-
ing into the "reservoir" would be confronted with a social
order to which they would be instinctively hostile. On the
contrary, such was the character of the "reservoir" itself, and
so important was the number of Chinese already identified
with it, even before the establishment of the Manchu dynasty,
that the normal ambition of the newcomer was not to form
a group hostile to the prevailing order, but to qualify himself
individually for admission into the ranks of privilege in the
order as it stood. This brings to the fore a fact which has
never, so far as I know, been pointed out: the criterion of
success, for the adventurer starting out with his back toward
China and his face toward the wilderness, became the ability

CONQUEST AND COMPROMISE 61

to turn about and, as a member of the privileged population
of the privileged "reservoir," face toward China; which thus
took the place of the wilderness as the "promised land," the
source of wealth and the proper field for the exercise of
power. The significance of this phenomenon, reversing the
direction of an originally expansive movement like coloni-
zation, cannot too strongly be emphasized.

The Chinese Bannermen formed a natural gradation
between Chinese and Manchus. Some distinctions were
maintained in theory between Manchu and Chinese Banner-
men, but Chinese Bannermen were definitely ranked, socially,
with the Manchus and apart from other Chinese. Manchu
and Chinese Bannermen intermarried freely; but in the
south of Liaoning (Fengtien) province, where the weight of
numbers had an effect, the two groups tended to remain dis-
tinct, as groups, though practically identical in function. In
the north, on the other hand, wherever the weight of popula-
tion was in favor of the Manchus, there was undoubtedly a
tendency for Chinese Bannermen to become actually Manchu
Bannermen. This was facilitated by the fact that the Banners
were not clan units, but territorial military cadres ; and military
mobilization groups they remained, in spite of a tendency
(apparently stronger in China than in Manchuria) to merge
the hereditary organization of military service with the social
unit proper, the clan.

During the rise of the Manchu power, any Chinese who
shaved his forehead and grew a queue (thus making it dif-
ficult for him to desert at short notice to an anti-Manchu po-
litical faction) could be recruited into a Chinese Banner. This
method of social transformation continued to be recognized
in later years, though it was invoked with decreasing fre-
quency both in regions where the Bannermen hardened into
a caste which was jealous of enlarging its privileged member-

62 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

ship, and in regions where the Chinese ceased to find it an
advantage to pass from the subject "race" to the dominant

"race."

It was, however, certainly possible, in Manchuria, for a
Chinese from China proper to become, in his own lifetime,
an out-and-out "Manchu." An instance of this phenomenon
came within my own experience when I formed an acquaint-
ance with a Chinese military officer and his old father. The
father, born in Honan, had gone to Manchuria as a young
man, had traveled over the most remote parts of the three
provinces, and had finally settled at Tsitsihar. One day I said
to the young man, "Why is it that you, who were born in
Tsitsihar, speak just like the generality of Manchurian Chi-
nese, while your father, who was born in Honan, has not only
the speech, but exactly the manner and even gestures of the
old-fashioned Manchus of Manchuria" [which differ some-
what from those of Peking Manchus]. He laughed, and said,
"When my father was a young man, it was difficult for a rnin~
jen [non-Banner Chinese, "a civilian," "one of the people"] 2
to get on in the world, up in the northern regions. The Man-
chus dominated everything, and they harassed the mm Chi-
nese. In Tsitsihar, where he settled down, they had a custom

2 The fact that the word "Manchu" was and is almost never used in conversa-
tion, and comparatively rarely in writing, is of distinct significance. The term in
commonest use was Ch'i-jen, "Bannermen," which included both Chinese and
Manchu Bannermen. The corresponding term for non-Banner Chinese was mm,
"a commoner," "a civilian." This bears out the point I have made that the
Manchus had become Chinese and retained not a racial, but a social distinction.
Another term still in use in Manchuria for non-Manchurian Chinese and new-
comers not yet identified with the still persisting "regionalism" is Man-tze.
This peculiar term has a great psychological interest. It is a very ancient north-
Chinese term for the non-Chinese "barbarians" south of the Yangtze. Its con-
tinued use both by the people of Manchuria and the Mongols can only be re-
ferred to the basic cleavage and antagonism between the Chinese of the north
and south; and it indicates the extent to which the peoples of the "reservoir"
identified themselves with the power of the north, and the true ancient direction
of the driving force of Chinese national and cultural expansionism toward the
south, not tie north.

CONQUEST AND COMPROMISE 63

of "chasing out the min" twice a year. All the Chinese who
had filtered in were liable to be driven out, and often beaten
and robbed. Of course, many of them came back; but the
only way to become secure was to "follow" [as the phrase
went] the Manchus and become so like them as to be un-
detectable. 3 So my father, when he had learned their ways,
"entered the Banners" and married a Manchu [which of
course was against the strict law] and has always remained
like them. But when I was growing up, it was no longer of
any use to be a Bannerman, and therefore I became like all
the other young men of my generation.

This is a story which illustrates the processes of the present
as well as of the past; for the young Manchus of Manchuria
are becoming rapidly indistinguishable from Manchuria-
born Chinese. As for the practice of "harassing" (ch'iju)
the under-dog, it cannot by any manner of means be con-
strued as an attempt to differentiate the Manchus racially
from the Chinese. It can at the present time be observed in
any region which contains a self-conscious dominant element
and an intrusive element whose competition is feared. The
identification at which the newcomer had to aim was one of
regionalism and social status. Even the tricks of manner and
language which he had to acquire, though tinged with sur-
vivals of Manchu characteristics and a few transformed Man-
chu words, were on the whole Chinese. If newcomers had
been faced with the necessity of acquiring the Manchu lan-
guage, amalgamation would hardly have been possible until
the second generation.

Indeed, there is a great interest in the contrast between the
rapid extinction of the Manchu language, and the strong

8 This however is obviously not the same thing as "going native," which is a
form of conversion. It is merely a climbing from one class to another a form
of promotion*

64 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

power of survival which the Mongol language has always
shown. Thus the Manchu language was already in decay,
and Chinese undoubtedly already the dominant language of
administration, even before the Manchus entered China. The
repeated efforts made by the Manchu emperors to keep the
Manchu language artificially alive are themselves a proof of
its complete decay. Yet Mongol is still spoken in Mongol
families living within a hundred miles of Mukden, where
they have been settled in the Chinese manner and surrounded
by Chinese for several generations. The contrast can further
be seen in the manner in which the Manchus, from the be-
ginning of the modern Chinese advance, have surrendered
their outworn social privileges and identified themselves with
the Chinese; whereas the tendency of Chinese who have
"gone Mongol" is distinctly to move on with the Mongols
who retreat before the Chinese advance.

So many of the old processes in the Manchu-Chinese sphere
of Manchuria survive at the present time that it is possible to
gauge the phenomena of the infiltration period of Chinese
penetration. The migrant might be a Chinese born in south-
ern Manchuria, or a borderer (there is still a slang name dis-
tinguishing Chinese from the part of Chihli province ad-
jacent to Manchuria) or a man from one of the districts in
Shantung which, as will be seen, had an established tradition
connecting it with Manchuria.

The attraction of Manchuria was the prospect of a life
more free from competition than in China proper, and more
free also from restrictions, because it was a land of privilege,
and governed accordingly more in a spirit of easy prosperity
than of any urgent necessity of exploitation. The prospects
of finding immediate work were facilitated by the existence
of numerous families, both of Manchu and Chinese Banner-
men, whose ambition was a life of leisure. The "reservoir"

CONQUEST AND COMPROMISE 65

was full of families which lived on the wealth that some
relative had acquired or was busy acquiring, as an official in
China, and who were glad to turn over their lands to an in-
dustrious and paying tenant. Indeed, the fall of the Empire
revealed the fact that many Manchus had moved to Peking,
leaving their lands in the hands of tenants; then, being in-
terested in official careers, they had neglected these lands,
and finally the tenants usurped them and, when the Empire
fell, were able to maintain their claims against the lapsed in-
terests of the original owning families.

The activities of outsiders who penetrated the "reservoir"
followed fairly regular courses. If they came among Chinese
Bannermen they had only to prove themselves industrious
and generally acceptable members of society. Then, by mar-
rying into one of the established families, or by some other
form of social negotiation, their position was quietly regu-
larized. Undoubtedly many of them "became" Chinese Ban-
nermen; but this was not necessary, for in southern Man-
churia large communities of non-Banner Chinese existed,
deriving from that part of the population which had passively
accepted, rather than actively participated in the Manchu con-
quest. On the whole, however, though permanent settle-
ment was easier and more rapid in the south, only a fractional
residue of the migrants (as is most conspicuously shown in the
"Shantung" type of migration) took up permanent holdings.
This was due not only to the formal prohibition against the
emigration of Chinese women beyond the Great Wall, but to
the fact that the recognized ambition of the established fami-
lies was the marriage of their daughters, not to promising
pioneers, but to members of the governing classes, who were
oriented toward China.

Farther to the north, in the markedly Manchu regions of
the "reservoir," infiltration was distinctly slower and more

66 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

difficult. Newcomers were almost invariably single men, and
formed so distinct a class that they received an appropriate
slang name, which their counterparts of the present day still
b&xp'aoJuei'rh-ti or "leg-runners" drifters, wanderers,
masterless men. This is distinctly a pejorative term, and it is
worth noting that in other border regions it is the term ap-
plied to bandit spies and go-betweens. 4 Even Chinese born
in Manchuria, when venturing into an unknown region,
were likely to go without their families. In other words the
northward drift was in character a tentative and uncertain
spread, not the instinctive and urgent drive of a spontaneously
expanding nation. Whether or not the adventurer returned
later for his family depended not only on whether he suc-
ceeded but on the manner of his success; and on the whole
the prevailing tendency was for the successful man to return,
not to settle.

The adventurer might strike into the forest and make a
clearing for himself, like a true pioneer. The terms u/o-p'eng
and wo-p'u, incorporated in many place names in Manchuria
and Eastern Inner Mongolia are legacies of this form of
settlement. Both terms mean not only "outlying farmer," or
"outlying village" or "inn or shelter by the wayside" but
and this is undoubtedly the earlier meaning "base camp of
a hunting party." To this day a ting u/o-p'eng-ti is "a settler"
as opposed to "a newly arrived member of an already estab-
lished community."

It was comparatively difficult for such a settler to obtain
a recognized status. He might succeed, by purchase or nego-
tiation or even theft, in getting a wife from one of the estab-
lished communities. If he did not steal her, she would have to

* Indeed, it is significant that there is no old-established vernacular word in
common use, which has the same proud and honorable connotations as "pioneer"
in English*

CONQUEST AND COMPROMISE 67

be written off the clan lists as "dead," in order to evade the
Manchu marriage laws; and such an evasion in itself em-
phasized the non-acceptance of the newcomer by the com-
munity. If he did steal her, he outlawed himself. He might
in time return to his native village for his wife; but on the
whole the man who could afford the double journey was
more likely to retire from pioneering.

The pioneer of this type almost never worked alone, but in
groups of single men. The crucial moment of such a settle-
ment arose when either it came within the cognizance of an
official or into contact with an earlier-established community.
If the new group was able to strike up terms, the settlement
had passed the crisis; after a period of toleration it would be
absorbed into the general group of communities and the
settlers would be likely to "graduate," so to speak, into the
Banner class.

If, on the other hand, the squatters failed to hit it oft on
coming into contact with official or community, or if they
encroached on local interests, they would be driven away, thus
becoming outlaws. The history of spontaneous colonization
in Manchuria and Mongolia is closely interwoven with the
history of banditry. Indeed, the pioneers were often squatters,
wanderers and outlaws by turns. Their original quest might
be for such valuable medicinal materials as ginseng or elk-
horn in the velvet; or for gold (more often washed from
streams than mined) ; or for sables (which were an article of
imperial tribute and could be disposed of to the Manchu
tribute officials even by illegal hunters) ; or other valuable
furs. Now the State in China has from of old had a prescrip-
tive interest in minerals and treasure. The mere act of pros-
pecting for gold put a man beyond the law; and even if a
party struck up an arrangement with the nearest official, on
the quiet, they were no more than outlaws under temporary

68 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

toleration. This explains the remark which I once heard of
a region in Heilungchiang where the predominating influence
is still that of the spontaneous period of colonization:
"All the villagers there have the flavor of banditry." Nor
was this a haphazard epigram; remarks of the same purport
crop up in casual conversation all over the thinly settled

north.

The career of the adventurer who did not strike out for
the wilderness, but made for an already established com-
munity, was commonly more decorous. His immediate ob-
ject was to find work under an employer, and usually his
ambition was, as has already been pointed out, not to settle
but to make money and return to his home. The Manchu
of leisure who wanted to have his land worked for him was
likely to be affable to the non-Banner Chinese, up to a point,
because the outsider, having no legal status, was not likely
to make trouble; whereas the local Bannermen, receiving
government subsidy, were all anxious to rise above manual
labor. The industrious immigrant would cultivate an agreed
acreage for his landlord. Then, if out in the country, he would
add a piece of land "of his own" whose harvest was his
private profit. Or, if on the outskirts of a town or village, he
would be likely to add a market garden, "his own" in prac-
tice if not in theory, selling the produce in the village. The
landlord had the tenant well under control up to a point;
but if too much bullied the newcomer would either look out
for another landlord or decamp to join the forest adventurers.

The successful man of this type, if he did not retire to his
own home, would gradually pass from a status of toleration
to one of higher social recognition. If he were aiming at per-
manent establishment he would be on the whole more likely
to look for a wife locally than to bring his own from his old
home. If he had become recognized as a sound man, a poor

CONQUEST AND COMPROMISE 69

local family might evade the marriage laws and provide him
with one of its daughters.

Even at this level, however, he had not freed himself from
a certain element of hazard. Too much assertion on the part
of an individual, or too rapid growth of an intruding
"tolerated" element, threatening the interests of the estab-
lished community, might arouse the resentment of the privi-
leged. Then the traditional process of "harassing" would
begin, and the newcomers, except those whose ties in practice
were strong enough to protect them, would be driven away to
join the outlaws and adventurers. These intermittent pur-
gations, obviously, played an important part in giving ban-
ditry the curious social status which still distinguishes it in
Manchuria.

The fully successful pioneer of this type (if pioneer he can
be called) was the man whose social value in terms of wealth
and ability became so convincing that he stood at last pos-
sessed of all the privileges most of them conferred on him
indirectly and unofficially. Thus if, after due private nego-
tiation, a son of his appeared at one of the periodical musters
of the Bannermen, and was accepted without protest as quali-
fied for the retaining subsidy of a Banner soldier, the whole
family would quietly be inscribed on the rolls of a Banner,
and perhaps at the same time, by the same type of private
negotiation, the family would by change of surname merge
into one of the local clans.

The most significant result of this method of tacit social
graduation was that the family which had succeeded became
divorced from all the interests of the "pioneer." It not only
was ranked above them, socially, but was oriented in an op-
posite direction. The tide of infiltration, the people some-
times tolerated, sometimes harassed, was definitely directed
toward the frontier; it was on the edge of the wilderness that

70 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

they had to qualify. But once a family had graduated into
the corps of the elect, it faced about toward China. The peo-
ple of privilege, the lords of the "reservoir," were oriented
toward Peking. Official preferment was the norm of am-
bition. The wealth and power to be derived from the po-
tential new sources of the "reservoir" itself were distinctly sec-
ondary ; they merely contributed to the ease of life. The richest
prizes were to be had in China, and to be gained through
careers in the imperial service. That this was the standard
of social values is proved by evidences not yet obliterated. The
villager in China is familiar with old legends and names of
far-away regions; but their geography is curiously vague.
On the whole, "the border" is all the same border to him,
whether the land beyond be Turkestan, Mongolia or Manchu-
ria. But the old-fashioned villager of "old" communities in
Manchuria (a fast-vanishing type) was familiar with many
names and their geography; for even in a small community
there would be Banner families whose members had held
high office all over China and its outer dominions.

MANCHURIA AT THE FALL OF THE MANCHU EMPIRE

At the close of the Manchu period we have, therefore, a
Manchuria which, in spite of the triumph of Chinese civiliza-
tion over the barbarity of the "outer tribes," still fulfills the
ancient function of the "reservoir." It is not an outlet for
Chinese expansionism and a field for the growth and develop-
ment of the power of China, but the key to the exercise of
power within China itself. Within Manchuria itself, however,
while the Manchus have amalgamated themselves with the
Chinese, there persists a profound cleavage between the
Manchu-Chinese amalgamation and the still practically intact
Mongol mass. What emerges from this is a realization of the

CONQUEST AND COMPROMISE 71

profound power of culture the way of life in comparison
with the factors of race and environment (including climate,
soil and natural vegetation, but not relative regional position,
under the heading of environment); and of the equally re-
markable power of geography regionalism in determining
the social and historical orientation of culture itself; whether,
that is, the culture is oriented toward civilization and cities
or toward the frontier and the wilderness.

What mattered most profoundly to the Manchus was not
the way of life itself, nor the details of political conceptions,
but the mere exercise of power. During the two generations
of extraordinary activity leading up to the occupation of
Peking in 1644 they practically took Chinese civilization in
their stride. It has already been pointed out that the "con-
quest" itself was not, in its essential aspects, an alien invasion
but the last campaign in a series of Chinese civil wars. The
quasi-"caste" structure of Manchu society, and the military
Banner organization, were in the ultimate analysis nothing
but a method of safeguarding the "reservoir" as the key to
strategical power; and this is none the less true from the fact
that in the popular opinion of both Chinese and Manchus, the
distinctions that existed were racial. Popular misapprehen-
sions of the meaning of "race" are, however, common enough
in all histories. In point of fact, within the "reservoir" and
through the Banner organization, and in China proper
through the examination system, it was possible for the Chi- -
nese to participate on terms of equality in the Manchu exercise
of power; and this they did, to the point of outnumbering
the Manchus.

The Chinese beyond a doubt outnumbered the Manchus
within the "reservoir" itself; but so far from resenting the
Manchu dominion, they participated in it enthusiastically;
the Manchu dominion could, it is obvious, have been most

72 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

easily overthrown by a revolt within the strategic regional
stronghold yet when revolt came, it came from far to the
south, beyond the Yangtze. Not only was the whole of the
North late in turning against the Manchus, but in Manchuria
itself there were no massacres of the "tyrants." Indeed, the
Manchu overlords not only did no violence to Chinese cul-
ture or Chinese ideals, but their rule, because of the ancient
orientation toward the Yangtze of the power of the North,
was generally welcome. It was only with the decay of the
ruling house, the growth of the power of revolt in the South,
and the desire to find a scapegoat on which to hang the
blame for all the ills of China, that a quasi-racial hatred was
worked up against the Manchus, which is now being per-
petuated in textbooks and political doctrines. While locally
and in particular cases the Chinese were treated by the Man-
chus as a subject race and the tendency to do so increased
with the decay of the dynasty it can hardly be affirmed that
they were in State theory regarded as an inferior race. On
the contrary they seem to have been regarded, in the light
of what may be called (since Chinese political terminology
does not correspond with ours) "unconscious theory," as "the
political party out of power." It is curious and interesting that
Chinese officials referred to themselves, when received in
audience by the emperor, as ch'en (an official); it was the
Manchu officials who used the term (a slave)^ thus em-
phasizing that they were regarded as the emperor's personal,
or "party" followers.

Language is primarily a vehicle of culture, not a symbol
of race; and no more important contrast can be distinguished,
as between Manchus and Mongols, than the use and fate of
their respective languages. From the beginning, Chinese was
the language of Manchu administration; the Manchu lan-
guage, although used parallel with Chinese in decrees, as a

CONQUEST AND COMPROMISE 73

matter of form, rapidly lost all significance except as the
nominal vehicle of communication between the emperor and
his personal following and even here Chinese was really
the living language. The Manchu presented in audience to
his emperor learned a few Manchu phrases, without neces-
sarily understanding their meaning, which he repeated as a
matter of form; but Chinese was the language of thought.
Within eighty years of the Manchu conquest there was pro-
duced, under imperial patronage, the great dictionary of
K'ang Hsi one of the greatest monuments of Chinese
scholarship. The survival of Manchu, as a dead language con-
fined to the schoolroom use of a social class, is to be compared
not with Norman French as used at the courts of the succes-
sors of William the Conqueror, but with Greek and Latin
as taught in the eighteenth century and at the English public
schools of the nineteenth century.

Among the Mongols, on the other hand, during the most
brilliant period of their empire in China, such totally alien
languages as Persian and Arabic seem to have been quite as
important at court, if not more important, than Chinese.
Marco Polo stood high at the court of Khublai Khan; he
spent the prime of his life in China, made journeys of extraor-
dinary length, and served as an official yet in his account
there has not survived one reference to the Chinese written
character. This indifference, to be appreciated, must be con-
trasted with the overwhelming preponderance of Chinese
elements in the accounts of the Jesuit Fathers at the Manchu
court in Peking; who also made important journeys in Man-
churia and Mongolia. Some casual reference to Chinese
writing may have been lost from Polo's account; but if it had
been dealt with at length, as important and marvelous, it could
hardly have been lost entirely. Friar Rubruck, although he did
not visit China proper and does mention Chinese writing, is

74 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

often a better observer and more apt commentator than Polo;
and his account, too, bears out the comparative unimportance
of Chinese civilization to the Mongols,

For to the Mongols the way of life is everything. The Chi-
nese have always looked on the Mongol culture as rude and
barbarous, and something of their contempt has been passed
on to Westerners. Moreover we, obsessed by one critical
method, look all too uncritically for "evolution" in every
phenomenon, and therefore dismiss Mongol nomadism as
a "lower" form of society awaiting evolution to something
"higher." Yet the Mongol nomadic society is a phenomenon
complete and independent. It resists "evolution" into the
"higher" form of settled agriculture not passively but
positively. It is, in fact, so complete that it is incapable of
evolution, it can only be replaced. Nor can its origins be at-
tributed entirely to environment. Both Russians and Chinese
have proved in the modern period that the Mongolian en-
vironment does not everywhere forbid agriculture, and ruins
of "pre-Mongol" cities prove that agriculture was also pos-
sible in the past. Environment plays a part, and change of
climate may have acted as an impetus in launching the mi-
grations of the Huns, and again in the sudden emergence of
the Mongols of Chinghis Khan; probably the true importance
of the environmental factor, on the average, is that the regions
of the Mongolian plateau where agriculture and city life are
possible have always lain open to, and been dominated by,
the great regions which favored a pastoral life. 5 But even
allowing for the full influence of environment, the devastating
expansion of the modern Mongols in the twelfth century as
an assertive conquering people must have been in the main
a spiritual phenomenon, rooted in a passionate conviction of

^See "Caravan Routes of Inner Asia," Geographical Journal, LXXJI, No. 6,
Dec. 1928.

CONQUEST AND COMPROMISE 75

the nobility and superiority of the free life. Too wide a dis-
persion and which is far more important a profound con-
tempt for the structure of power in settled communities, lost
them their empires; but even in decline they are still in-
stinctively satisfied with, and proud of, the pastoral life and
the free life. Indeed, the most important modification of
Mongol society is the result, not of the direct action of the ob-
viously superior Chinese civilization, but of the introduction
of monastic lamaistic Buddhism. The foundation of monas-
teries has to a great extent undermined both the instinct for
free movement and the idea of conquest as a career; and it is
undoubtedly this influence of the lamas, and not ^ the fre-
quently alleged cessation of increase in population "as a re-
sult of (nominal) celibacy" which accounts for the present
decay of Mongol society. It is my opinion that the Mongol
conquests did not, in the ultimate analysis, originate in pres-
sure of population, whether due to change of climate or any
other cause, but in an attitude of mind. They did not set out
to conquer because they had to, but because they wanted to.
The idea of freedom, free movement, free migration, devel-
oped to a point where conquest became an exaltation, the only
career for noble souls. When this inspiration was sated, the
Mongols declined. In 1242 they were at the gates of Vienna;
nothing could stop them. Then came the news of the death
of Ogotai, the Great Khan. This demanded the return of
Batu, commanding the host in Europe, to take part in the
election of a new supreme Khan. There was no reason at all
why he should not have arranged to hold the new conquests
he had made; but he did not. The truth is, he did not want
them. The act of conquest had been enough. He and Su-
butai, his great marshal, turned around with all their host
and rode back. The high point of the expansive energy of
the Mongols had been passed.

76 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

In the lethargy that followed the great conquests, lamaism
was introduced. The present decay of the Mongols is not
due to "monastic celibacy" but to change in the attitude of
mind, of which lamaism was, originally, not the cause but
a result. Even at the present day, and in spite of the damage
done by lamaism, the average attitude of Mongol communities
to the advance of civilization is avoidance. Some Mongols do
settle down and "become Chinese"; but even when they do
their language (the index of pride in non-Chinese origin)
shows a power of survival extraordinary in comparison with
Manchu. On the whole, in spite of the superiority of the
Chinese, it is still necessary for Chinese to "go Mongol" when
penetrating among the Mongols in a sense quite different from
that of "going Manchu" during the period when Chinese
entered Manchu regions of old Manchuria.

It is all the more striking that, whether the social condition
was one of amalgamation, as between Manchus and Chinese,
or irremediable disparity, as between Mongols and Chinese,
the influence of the region continued paramount. At the
same time that the Manchus were becoming Chinese in cul-
ture, the Chinese of Manchuria were becoming Manchu, or
perhaps it would be better to say Manchurian, in politics.
At the same time that a Chinese population was driving out
a Mongol population, and pushing back the "Mongol men-
ace" from the plateau overhanging North China, it did not
produce a new regionalism, but perpetuated the old. So long
as the colonizing frontiersmen were establishing a territorial
foothold, they represented a Chinese advance; when they had
succeeded, they faced about. The Mongol front became de-
fensive, and the escarpment of the plateau between them and
China became "the frontier."

A regionalism of this kind enters into the blood, it survives
changes in the type of civilization, and defies intellectual

CONQUEST AND COMPROMISE 77

definitions of policy and expansionism. That this regionalism
does survive, and that it produces an inner discord in Man-
churian affairs, is proved by the categorical differences in
temper and execution between contemporary Manchurian
frontier policy, whether the frontier is Mongol, Russian or
Japanese, and the policy of that other, inward-facing frontier
still essentially defined by the Great Wall. The fall of the
Manchu dynasty has altered only the names, not the facts,
of one of the radical problems confronting the statesmanship
of China the problem of so controlling the inevitable and
now very rapid expansion into Manchuria that it will ef-
fectively alter the balance between China and other nations,
without precipitating fresh crises in the ancient opposition
between North and South within China, and without
strengthening the ancient power of regionalism and the
"reservoir." The fact that the problem of regionalism as a
dangerous obstacle is instinctively appreciated is borne out
by the strong feeling among Chinese that the regional term
"Manchuria," used in all foreign languages, ought to be
discontinued.

Western opinion generally has been misled by the extraor-
dinary acceleration in contemporary colonization and ex-
ploitation in Manchuria into the belief that "the Manchurian
question" is essentially a problem of the new world; that Man-
churia is in the forefront of the development of a new China,
and that its problems are chiefly those of Chinese expansion,
affecting external frontiers. In point of fact the crux of all
Manchurian affairs is still the relation of Manchuria to China.
The policies of the inward-facing frontier of regionalism still
take precedence over the outer frontiers of the nation. It is
not sufficiently realized that the growth of wealth and power
in Manchuria still increase the pressure of Manchuria on
China far more than they increase the pressure of China on

78 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

Mongolia and the wilderness or on Japan or Russia. The fron-
tiersman still has his back to the frontier.

What is in fact taking place is the revaluation of a still
vigorous regionalism in terms of new categories of power
of which the chief are Western mechanics and the railway.
Because of the comparative emptiness of the land, the Western
factors have had a freer play and more immediate effect than
in other parts of China, and this in itself accounts for a great
deal of the superficial resemblance of colonization in Man-
churia to colonization in Western lands. This very resem-
blance, however, obscures the underlying conflict between the
civilization of China and that of the West. The "progressive-
ness" of Manchuria is, in fact, part of the impact of the West
on China; and while Westernization is now accepted as in-'
evitable, and the achievement of Western technical standards
is regarded by the most active public opinion in China as an
end to be striven for, Western civilization as a whole is con-
sidered to have a number of menacing qualities. In the process
of modernizing Manchuria there is, therefore, a struggle to
subordinate Western technical methods to Chinese ideals of
civilization; a struggle to master the West, not to become
Western. It is therefore necessary to consider two aspects
of the complex of problems in Manchuria the derivation of
the modern phase from a historical process of great vigor and
distinct individual character, and the contemporary struggle
between two civilizations totally alien to each other.

CHAPTER IV

THE LIVING FORCE OF CHINESE CULTURE
EAST AND WEST

No MORE fruitful breeding ground of fallacies exists than
the comparison of the civilization of China and that of the
modern West. One thing, however, is certain: the civilization
of China is not only the oldest living civilization in the world,
,but it is in itself extremely "late," in the full Spenglerian sense
of the term. It is the final expression of a culture which long" 1
ago fulfilled and matured every potentiality of growth in-,
herent in its own powers. While, therefore, the radical prob-
lem of modern China is frequently defined as the adaptation
of Western forces to Chinese culture, what is more commonly
to be observed in the contact of the two civilizations is not
a process of blending but a struggle in which Western elements
either kill off and replace Chinese elements or are successfully
subdued and so transvalued that they no longer have their
own meaning; in other words, are themselves defeated.

So imperfectly has the West as yet comprehended the spirit
of Chinese civilization, that it is probably not yet possible
to interpret the whole of Chinese civilization in terms which
are valid for Western understanding. I should like, however,
to discuss two Chinese characteristics which, while they can-
not begin to "explain" the total character of Chinese civiliza-
tion, may serve to illuminate some of its working processes.
The two characteristics are interdependent; one is die attitude
toward responsibility, the other the attitude toward definition.

79

8o MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

The Western attitude toward responsibility is character-
istically defined in terms of will and activity. The individual
assumes and asserts responsibility; and equally, when there is
a legal question of the determination of responsibility, it can
only be defined in terms of intention and action. In ac-
cordance with this instinct, even a negative attribution of re-
sponsibility must be defined in terms of what a man has not
done, or not decided. Moreover, in sympathy with the re-
spect for will inherent in the Western concept of responsibility,
we judge the ability of a man by his capacity to "do things"
with the forces of nature, and to "make things happen" in
the world of men. The type of the settler in the wilderness,
the pioneer colonizer, that emerges against the background
of this tradition of assertive personal responsibility is obvious
and to us familiar; but there can be no doubt that he differs
from the frontiersman nourished by the Chinese tradition.

For the Chinese tradition inevitably tends to appear, to the
Westerner, one of passivity. It is probably, in truth, more
neutral than passive; there seems to be a profound instinct
for adjusting the forces of nature and of humanity and, in
the affairs of humanity, active forces and negative forces, in
order to produce a pure harmony in which any conflict of
negative and positive is as completely eliminated as possible.
So impatiently assertive is the West, however, that it invari-
ably assesses as negative this method of "canceling out."

To begin with the Chinese method appears, in practice, to
fix responsibility not in terms of "who has done something,"
but of "what has happened." When something has once hap-
pened, responsibility must be assigned; and hence there is al-
waysjui^^ to try to preyentjdeQi3iye Jthings

from happening^ and to diff use responsibility. In legal prac-
tice,T6r instance, this leads to the convention that when a
murder has been committed, a murderer must be produced

LIVING FORCE OF CHINESE CULTURE 81

to match the corpse. If the individual cannot be apprehended
by the police, the family or the village or some larger com-
munity must be made responsible and made to produce "satis-
faction." Similarly, when a murderer has been apprehended,
the fixing of responsibility on him by the official prosecution
is not in itself sufficient, because it is assertive, one-sided and
unbalanced. The murderer must be made to confess, thus
bringing the whole process into harmony, canceling out the
assertion of the prosecution with the acquiescence of the
defense.

Naturally such conceptions often led, in the old typical
tradition, to such evasions as the hiring of a victim to replace
the actual criminal, or the production of a scapegoat by a
community within whose bounds a crime had been committed
by someone totally unknown. This conception of respon-
sibility, leading apparently to such working theories as the
idea that a conviction for every crime is even more important
than proving that the convicted man is the actual criminal,
and that an employee can, for instance, be made to bear the
penalty that should have been allotted to an absconding prin-
cipal, have led Westerners to liken the Chinese system to the
Hebraic canon of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."
It is, however, in the ultimate analysis, something different.

Be that as it may, the fact emerges that an instinct which
tends to work in terms of what has happened rather than in
terms of who assumes the responsible initiative for making
things happen, must produce a type of conquest of the wilder-
ness, a type of colonization, and a type of colonist totally
strange to Western ideas. Thus in the Empire builder, the ad-
ministrator and the great official the type to be looked for is
not the type of Clive or Cecil Rhodes, but the type of the
negotiator, the mediator, the man who adapts the change
of the old to the progress of the new. In the colonist the

82 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

type to be looked for is not the man who goes off in search
of loneliness and "room to be free," but the man who adapts
himself to the necessities of a spreading society. In the sup-
pression of bandits, extermination is only exceptional; nego-
tiation is the typical process usually, and very significantly,
by merging the bandits, through enlistment, in the ranks of
their enemies the troops. Some of the bandits, or their leaders,
may subsequently be exterminated through treachery; but
that is a secondary adjustment; the antecedent negotiation
is the primary process.

A comparable contrast distinguishes Western and Chinese
ideas of definition. To the Westerner, definition is a primary
thing. So urgent is the assertion of personality and control
that all definitions must be carried out to the remotest extreme
even to extremes of absurdity, as may be seen, for instance,
in the multiplicity and arrogant assertiveness of American
laws, which are not unique or different from the laws of
Europe, but m'erely carry further the general tendency in-
herent in all Western codes. In China, on the other hand,
definition is often avoided, and even when used is purely
secondary. No matter how elaborate and specific the de-
clared theory, all working processes are consciously carried out
in a spirit of compromise between fact and theory. In the
West, any such compromise is felt to be a failure of the sys-
tem; in China it is the system. No greater contrast could be
imagined than the fact of a liquor traffic and the theory of
liquor prohibition in America, and the fact of an opium
traffic and the theory of opium prohibition in China. In
America the connivance of officials in violations of the pro-
hibition law is felt to be a failure of the system, and efforts to
perfect the system, however futile, are incessant. The situa-
tion arises from a conflict of individual wills with the official
will. The connivance of individual officials is merely one of

LIVING FORCE OF CHINESE CULTURE 83

the incidents of the struggle. Even were the system perfect,
the official will would still conflict with innumerable private
wills.

In China, on the contrary, the whole opium traffic depends
on the fact of official participation; the official prohibition is
merely one of the incidents which contribute to the profits
of the trade. Official participation is so real that the very of-
ficials who are theoretically responsible for the suppression of
opium frequently enforce in practice the cultivation of the
poppy. The difference between this method and venial con-
nivance ought not to have to be pointed out. In the same way,
in spite of strenuous efforts at reform, new theories of the
functions of the officials still conflict with the living tradition
that the official is not expected to execute, but to manipulate
the policies with which he is entrusted; and, specifically, that
he does not rely on pay and promotion, but on the profits of
his actual office and private negotiation for the acquisition of
higher office.

All this does not prove, what Westerners frequently think,
that the Chinese tradition, and the family system especially,
tend to the suppression of personality. In no country in the
world is the personality of the individual more potent than
in China. The working of personalities of great depth and
power may be seen in every turn of Chinese events. It is only
that the modes of personality differ in China and the West.
In the Western style, the individual strives to realize every
potentiality within him; he defines his courses, assumes re-
sponsibility for them, and stands or falls by the successful im-
plementing of his own assertions. In China, on the other hand,
the individual holds every potential power and resource of his
personality in reserve; he negotiates warily, and deploys all
his resources, before allowing responsibility to be allotted to
him and thereafter displays his personality, and wins approval

84 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

or condemnation, by his manipulation of events as they
occur.

Thus in Western crises leading to war, the justifications
which are cited by the responsible leaders are based typically on
asserted responsibilities or policies, and are even so of sec-
ondary importance; public commendation and public sup-
port depend primarily on the assertion of what is going to
be done during and after the war. In China, on the other
hand, the justifications for entering on a war are of the most
profound importance; they are designed to show that the
responsible leaders are making the most skillful adjustment
possible to inevitable events. The announcements of policy
during the war and after victory are secondary; public opinion
is far from being outraged when the war itself is carried on by
shifts and expediencies, and the terms of peace arrived at turn
out to be quite different from those postulated. Unrest in
Europe is very largely due to the fact that the results of the
Versailles Treaty are different from the objectives responsibly
announced. Unrest in China proceeds not from the terms of
peace at the conclusion of any given civil war, but from the
feeling that the "inevitables" postulated at the beginning of
the conflict are not genuine but merely disguise personal am-
bitions.

Even the Great Wall, which appears at the first blush to be
one of the most magnificent monuments in history of definite
assertion and definite policy is in fact nothing of the sort. It
is indeed the symbol of perhaps the most passionately asserted
attitude in Chinese history; but that attitude was not declared
in a single gesture. The Great Wall is not the result of a
military conception dynamically carried out. It is the out-
growth of the discovery of a type of defense that was of
unique value in stemming the force of barbarian invasions,
and graduating the steps of necessary adjustment. The system

LIVING FORCE OF CHINESE CULTURE 85

was gradually built to suit current needs, and though largely
unified under the great Ch'in Chih Huang-ti, it could be
shown, were the records complete enough, that in any given
generation the frontier was not absolute, but a basis of ad-
justment, the balance wavering to one side or the other. In
the same way, the greatest conquests of expansion beyond
the Great Wall have a character of defense; they belong
in the category of British operations beyond the Northwest
Frontier of India, and the Younghusband Mission to Lhasa.

CHINA AND JAPAN

The modern history of Japan illustrates the fact that, in
a region like Manchuria where the civilizations of East and
West are abruptly opposed to each other, the resulting unrest
proceeds not from the mechanical difficulties of amalgama-
tion, but from a struggle for domination. Underlying the
profound Chinese antagonism toward Japan there is a hos-
tility, not of race but of culture. For Japan is now essentially
a Western nation. Though it retains its national character-
istics, these modify its essential Westernness not very much
more than, say, the "Latin" characteristics of France modify
the position of France in the Western group. The eagerness
with which the Japanese took over the Western civilization, in
spirit as well as in fact, is to be compared with the rapid
assumption of Chinese characteristics by the Manchus; while
the profound distrust which the Chinese feel for the civiliza-
tion of the West is to be compared with the traditional avoid-
ance of the civilization of China by the Mongols.

The first approach of the West was resisted in Japan as in
China; but when Perry demonstrated that the West
"amounted to something," the effect approximated to a revela-
tion, and was so accepted. It is now evident that the really

86 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

important subsequent conflicts of opinion within Japan itself
turned, in the main, not on questions of the desirability of
Westernization, but on the methods to be adopted in accom-
plishing Westernization. There was a latent power of growth
within the nation which was released by the West, which wel-
comed the West, and has flowed eagerly since then into the
Western outgrowth grafted on to the original stock. Char-
acteristics that are merely national have survived with little
modification; but cultural characteristics that are incompati-
ble with the spirit of the West tend to fall into the category
of survivals, respected and preserved for the sake of tradition,
but no longer governing the national life.

There is, it is true, a gap between Japan and the West which
is very important. Japan, viewed from China, may well seem
more Western than when viewed from America. It may even
be that the Japanese are more Western in Manchuria than
in Japan itself. Some critics hold that Westernization in
Japan is only a veneer. It has, however, affected Japan too
vitally, I think, to be called merely superficial. It is the
Westernization of Japan, above all else, that conditions its in-
ternational relations that is to say, its life in the world, as dis-
tinguished from its private life. Even if it be conceded that
Westernization in Japan itself is imperfect, that does not
materially affect the truth that Japan in Manchuria functions
as a unit of the group of Western nations.

Perhaps what is most important, and to the Japanese most
dangerous, in the difference between Japan and the West
proper, is the chronological "lag." The pace of development
in the West itself is so rapid that Japan has never, in many
important respects, really caught up. Technical inventions
and improvements drag behind the progress of the West, and
the processes of Westernization have been much more thor-
ough in some departments of the national economy than in

LIVING FORCE OF CHINESE CULTURE 87

others. Under the stress of keeping up with the West and
trying to cut down the handicap of a late start, much that is
"modern" in Japan is, perforce, more imitative than creative.
It can be argued that Japan, in converting itself, has aban-
doned to a great extent initiative and latitude of choice, being
forced to follow the majority lead of the West. This, how-
ever, is true also of the less "developed" European nations.

The commonly accepted statement that Japan adopted the
technique of the West in order to preserve itself from sub-
jugation by the West misses a great part of the truth. Un-
doubtedly this was the overt aim of many leaders of reform in
Japan, and to this end they staved oflE the West as best they
could while schooling the nation in its assumption of the
qualities of the West. But the spirit of the nation itself real-
ized innumerable fresh possibilities; its unfulfilled powers of
growth reached out toward the new dispensation. The na-
tion that emerged after the schooling was not an Eastern na-
tion with an external Western armor but a nation which has
integrated itself with the West, has continued to be a vigorous
member of the West, and has carried on, in the East, the work
of the West.

It is China, on the contrary, which has endeavored to use
the weapons of the West to preserve itself from the West
Misunderstanding of the cleavage between China and Japan
has done a great deal to pervert Western judgment, and
above all has led to the fallacious and self-flattering expecta-
tion of an "awakening" of China which is to be comparable
to the "awakening" of Japan. Contact with the West was es-
tablished earlier and more gradually in China than in Japan,
and for a long time, so far from there being any threat of
Western domination, the governments of the West were re-
spectfully cautious in dealing with China as a great power
of unknown quantity. Yet such curiosity as China displayed

88 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

in regard to Western civilization was only the curiosity of
fashionable diversion. Chinese interest in the West only be-
came serious when the foreign nations, finding that China,
in spite of its impressive potential power, was vulnerable to
Western methods of attack, became aggressive. The interest
then awakened was primarily defensive, and it has remained
essentially defensive. While the power of many Western in-
ventions has been recognized, and the profit to be realized
from many Western methods, no single quality of the West,
no subjective conviction, has truly appealed to the Chinese.
The Western style, for the Chinese, reveals no new dispen-
sation, nor any opening up of fresh and desirable or morally
superior worlds of inspiring possibilities. There is nothing
in it that, from the standard of Chinese spiritual values, it
would be disgraceful to have to go without.

While Japan maneuvered for time to adopt Western char-
acteristics and catch up with the West, the whole history of
Chinese relations with the West implies an underlying in-
stinctive playing for time, in the hope that the West would
exhaust itself and China be able to assert once more the
superiority of which the Chinese are morally convinced.
The normal type of the Chinese "employment of Western
methods to defeat the West" has consistently been not the
adoption of Western methods in order to attain Western
standards, but the interposition of Western methods between
China and the West, in order to stave off the West; and this
type of manoeuver can only be explained, viewing the con-
flict from the standpoint of China, by postulating as ideal
some such eventual solution as the sloughing off of the West
and the survival of the Chinese tradition in its full integrity.

Had the Western spirit possessed any such true appeal for
the Chinese as it had for the Japanese, China would have been
ideally situated for receiving and adopting it. It is true that

LIVING FORCE OF CHINESE CULTURE 89

China, on account of its territorial mass * and innumerable
population offers great difficulties to the penetration of alien
ideas. Japan, in comparison, with its limited area, accessible
from all sides, its numerous ports and small population, could
be approached and penetrated at many points simultaneously.
This consideration is frequently brought forward by both
Chinese and foreign critics, when comparing the problems
of Westernization in China and Japan. It is a sound point,
but in emphasizing the material difficulties it begs the question
of cultural feeling. As against this point, it may be said that
other factors might have been expected to favor China. The
Western approach to China was gradual, was in the first in-
stance highly conciliatory (as is shown by the histories of the
early embassies) and was for long restricted to a few coastal
ports. Had Western inventions been adopted and developed
in China as rapidly as Chinese inventions were adopted and
developed in the West, it would have been easy, in the vast
hinterland, to marshal the latent forces of the nation during
a period of transformation, making it possible for a formid-
able and well-integrated nation to emerge and participate in
international affairs.

The West, however, was at first regarded as an intrusive,,
element which had to be subordinated, then as an importunate
element which had to be accommodated, and is now still re-
garded, on the whole, as a violent but stupid element which
may yet be neutralized, as a forest fire is defeated by counter-
fires. The consequence is that every "advance of Westerniza-
tion" in China tends to have the character of an aggression.

The period of doubt and struggle in Japan turned on the

1 It may not be out of place to point out, in respect of the great size of China,
that if we subtract Mongolia, Chinese Turkestan and Tibet, where the Chinese
provide only a fraction of the population, but which are usually marked and
colored on maps as if they were homogeneous with China, we are left with
a China reduced in size by nearly half.

90 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

question of whether Japan was to be "run" by foreign interests,
or whether the Japanese could "run" their own country as a
Westernized State transformed by themselves. The process of
Westernization was directed by the men who had Westernized
themselves; they had full responsibility and full initiative. In
China, on the contrary, policy and control are still in the hands
of men who are not Westernized. Men with railway training
may be directors of railways, but they are themselves con-
trolled by men who understand the functions of railways in
Chinese, not in Western terms. Western military training is
not an essential but an incidental qualification for a com-
manding general. Western military science, in fact, affects
only the tactics, never the strategy of Chinese warfare. Not
only do Chinese commanders with foreign training altogether
discard Western ideas of strategy, but even foreign military
advisers, called in to train armies, are jealously restricted from
any voice in the conduct of a campaign as a whole.

So irrational is all Western civilization when assessed by
Chinese standards that Chinese statesmen of great ability
have repeatedly and regularly handled the question of "West-
ern power" not as if it were subject to rational analysis but as
if it were some kind of knack or trick, which could be used
without having to be understood. The problem of under-
standing the West is repeatedly abandoned in favor of an
experimental search for the "secret" of Western power.
Japanese military training is tried; maybe that will do the
trick. The Russian combination of military units and prop-
aganda units is tried; maybe that will do the trick. German
staff organization is tried; maybe that will do the trick. All
kinds of formulae are tried; it may be that one day one of
them will suddenly provide a universal, a quasi-magical
solution of all problems, and the "problem of the West" will
have been mastered. The whole career of the great Dr. Sun

LIVING FORCE OF CHINESE CULTURE 91

is a kind of quest of a philosopher's stone. Not only do his
analyses of political, social and economic forces appear
weirdly irrational to Western thought, but they never affected,
by any power of reason, the political thought of China. He
was always distrusted while he was alive by the majority of
his countrymen. He will be remembered in time as an histor-
ical figure of tragic irony. When his working life was at an
end, his name suddenly was invoked all over the country, as
if it were magical in itself; for he had won a following, not
by intellectual persuasion, but because his latest, weirdest and
least understandable formula seemed for a moment to have
turned the trick, to have captured the knack. Since then his
name and his formulae have been invoked only for tactical
purposes; his method of modernization has no more been
followed out than that of any other philosopher, and the
quest for a magic formula that carries the secret of Western
power but does not demand the price of Westernization is
more pursued in doubt and conflict by two-and-seventy jar-
ring sects.

The tragedy of Dr. Sun's devoted life is that his ideas, as
expounded in the San Min Chu I or "Three People's Princi-
ples," and elevated to the authority of dogma, serve chiefly
to stultify original thought in the generation that is now
maturing. Exegesis of the San Min Chu I has, to an appalling
extent, superseded original thought. To outquote a rival in
terms of the San Min Chu I is better than to out-think him;
to quote Dr. Sun on foreign aggression or economics has, for
the student generation, practically replaced the quest for
methods of defeating foreign aggression, or for a new
economics. So authoritative is the canon that independent
utterances on public problems, foreign affairs and political
economy can be as dangerous for Chinese politicians as are
independent judgments on Russian affairs for American

92 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

public men. I a quotation from Dr. Sun can be made to
apply to any situation, with intent to obstruct, the handling
of that situation on its merits can usually be prevented. In
the meantime, the world of affairs lives from hand to mouth,
convinced neither by the teachings of Dr. Sun, nor by the
"new dispensation" of the West, nor yet wholly confident of
its own autochthonous tradition.

In the world of affairs the struggle still turns on the ques-
tion of whether Western activities are to remain essentially
Western, or whether they can be transvalued into Chinese
terms. Thus foreign interests advancing the capital, under-
taking the construction and initiating the administration of
railways owned by and operated on behalf of the Chinese
Government have consistently found it necessary to stipulate
for safeguards of foreign control. All questions of control,
and all controversies affecting private investment, Central
Government control, Provincial Government control, and so
forth, can be reduced to one simple statement of an ultimate
antagonism: Are railways in China to be what Westerners
think a railway should be, or are they to be what the Chinese
think it is enough for a railway to be permitted to be?

In railways which are not safeguarded by some element of
foreign control, "capital investment," "operating expenses,"
"maintenance," "director," "shareholder" and all other tech-
nical terms lose their Western significance. The whole enter-
prise, except for the fact that it was fashioned in the image of
a railway, and is called a railway, becomes as unintelligible
to a Westerner as are the operations of a Chinese tax-
monopoly or the machinery of a Chinese parliament. The
chief residuum of fact, from the investor's point of view, is de-
faulted payments on capital and interest.

On the other hand, every railway or other comparable
enterprise which is protected by safeguards, however tact-

LIVING FORCE OF CHINESE CULTURE 93

fully disguised, for the benefit of the foreign interests con-
cerned, inevitably affronts the Chinese as an aggression. In
other words, what appears to the investor to be the minimum
protection insuring a fair return on the investment is con-
strued in the country of investment as "foreign aggression";
and the mere existence of this concept obliterates distinctions
of detail between the "aggression" of individuals, corporate
firms, or nations. It is all "foreign aggression"; because the
whole thing would be done differently if the Chinese had
a free hand.

There is no denying the substratum of bitter truth in Dr.
Sun's bitter description of China as a "semi-colonial" country.
There can be no doubt that only the accident of geographical
situation saved China in the past century from being accorded
full colonial treatment. Other parts of the world were
reached and dealt with first, and by the time China was
reached, there was enough tension among the Western
nations to make them impede one another in the subjuga-
tion of China. The process went little further than the es-
tablishment of Western safeguards for processes of Western-
ization.

WESTERN PRESSURE ON CHINA THROUGH
MANCHURIA

The fact that the Chinese instinct still seeks, not to become
Western but to use Western methods for holding off the
West, is of cardinal importance in the frontier problems of
Manchuria, Mongolia and Chinese Turkestan; and above
all in Manchuria, which is accessible from the West both by
land and sea. In China proper the clash with the West is
one of cultures, not of populations. In Manchuria there is a
threatened pressure of mutually unassimilable populations.

94 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

There is an accelerating spread of Chinese populations, largely
made possible by an accelerated introduction of Western meth-
ods of transport and exploitation. The strategic position of the
^nations across the frontiers is becoming decidedly stronger;
economic pressure is increasing, and it can hardly be doubted
that while direct political pressure is being abandoned, it
will as it were inevitably be replaced by increased indirect po-
litical pressure.

All of these factors result in a reflex action exceedingly
difficult to analyze, but potent in itself, within the "Man-
churian situation." The increasing Chinese population
represents a Chinese expansion, nominally comparable to
the nineteenth-century spread of people of European stock
into the American West. Yet on the other hand this Chinese
population, worked on both by direct Western pressure and
the indirect influences of a Westernization distinctly higher
in dynamic power than the parallel forces of Westernization
in China proper, itself serves as an intermediary in the
increasing general Western pressure on China.

For the pressure of the West on China is not diminishing,
but undergoing a transformation of phase. Recent develop-
ments in the situation as between China and Russia clearly
point out the type of transformation. Direct political pres-
sure is being relaxed, and the privileged position of foreigners,
of which "extraterritoriality" is the stronghold and catch-
word, is being abandoned. The experience of the Russians
after the abandonment of extraterritoriality, the unelimi-
nable antagonism between Chinese and Russians over funda-
mental ideas of the functions of a railway, the dispute of
1929-30, distinguished by the comical avoidance by both
sides of the name "war," and the subsequent negotiations,
not yet completed, all point to the replacement of "privilege"
by something else 'Vested interests" or whatever it may be.

LIVING FORCE OF CHINESE CULTURE 95

The essential processes of Westernization, in defiance of all
conciliatory phraseology, continue to be carried on chiefly in
forms of aggression; and the status of individuals and cor-
porate bodies associated with an aggressive process cannot
be other than "privileged," however earnestly legal definitions
of privilege may be avoided.

Moreover, while the direct forces of pressure and privilege
are being transformed into activities of different form but
equivalent function, there is an inevitable tendency, in the
case of a region like Manchuria, toward the taking over of
many of the functions of political pressure on China by the
Manchurian Chinese themselves. This tendency is reinforced
by the political and social tradition of the "reservoir," and
facilitated by the employment of such Western instruments
of power as the railway, the factory and the arsenal. The
obvious and frequently asserted aim of the Chinese in Man-
churia is to employ Western methods to hold off the West;
to transform Manchuria from a colonial region into a part of
China proper, and to support the Chinese front against Russia
and Japan. As against the execution of this ideal, however,
the reflex action of which I have spoken works in such a
manner that, in practice, the mere borrowing of Western
technique is enough to prompt the assertion of the power of
Manchuria, as a quasi-autonomous unit, in China. The sit-
uation, restated in its most simple contradictions, is that the
mass colonization of Manchuria by Chinese is in the main
made possible by Western methods which were first intro-
duced as a form of aggression (the Chinese Eastern and
South Manchuria Railways are good examples) and are in
great measure hostile to the spirit of Chinese culture; and
that the power inherent in the methods encourages the Man-
churian Chinese to reassert against China the ancient domi-
nation of the "reservoir" thus providing a channel which

96 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

conducts toward China the increased pressure of forces de-
structive of the essential Chinese civilization.

THE OLD AGE OF CHINESE CIVILIZATION

The civilization of China, as has already been pointed out,
is not only extremely old but extremely "late." The period of
growth and of dynamic expansion must have been completed
before the time of Confucius, for Confucius was no creative
thinker, but the didactic tabulator of formulae already sanc-
tioned as the wisdom of the sages of antiquity. It is the quality
of age and fulfilled growth which lies back of the "static" or
"repetitive" appearance of Chinese life which very commonly
impresses Westerners. Except for the conflict between West-
ern introductions and the old tradition, there seems to be
little movement that is not in the manner of variations on old
themes. Conservatism not only tends to do the old things in
the old way, but the new things, as far as possible, in the old
manner. The really crucial problems, in face of such an as-
sertive encroaching power as the civilization of the West,
though they are called problems of development, turn more
truly on methods of destruction and replacement than on
methods of adaptation. That is why the processes of Westerni-
zation, though they are felt to be imperative by leaders of
Chinese thought and the type of statesman who tries to rule
performance by theory, meet with an inert but living opposi-
tion in the body of the nation there is a feeling that reforma-
tion is not a triumph, but a defeat.

For this very reason the greatest danger which hangs over
China, which disturbs the leaders of all factions and is rapidly
coming to be realized as a menace even by the solid, untheo-
retical classes that have kept China going through the hazard-
ous years of the revolutionary phase the classes that stick

LIVING FORCE OF CHINESE CULTURE 97

doggedly to practical measures is the danger of total rev-
olution and chaotic destruction. This danger is generally
called Communism, but the label is more convenient than
accurate, for Chinese Communism is different both from
Marxian theory and Russian practice. It is the embodiment
of the danger that all alternatives of adaptation may be
abandoned and swept away in a total collapse, with all the
violent phenomena of defeat and despair. If the conflict
between East and West should end in such a catastrophe,
the nation that would at last emerge might be a China dom-
inated and exploited by the West, or it might be something
totally different; but it certainly would not be either an
"evolved" nation like Japan, in which the old currents have
been turned into new channels, or a nation vigorously pre-
serving in all its integrity the old civilization of China,
fortified externally by borrowed Western methods.

This latter ideal, that of Western methods adventitiously
used but not incorporated into the old tradition nor allowed
to modify the essential point of view an "adaptation" which
would preserve the old currents running in the old channels,
but would fortify the banks of the channels by the latest
modern methods was the result which all the great modern
statesmen of China, from Li Hung-chang to K'ang Yu-wei
and Dr. Sun, attempted to achieve by widely differing
methods, all of which failed.

The problem of colonization in Manchuria is therefore the
problem of assessing an apparently vigorous expansive move-
ment in its relation to the equally apparent and contradictory
fact that the expanding nation is shaken down to its roots
by an offensive and defensive struggle over the most funda-
mental conceptions of civilization and instincts of culture,
and in the light of the fact that the very factors which make
possible a rapid colonizing expansion are in themselves mani-

98 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

festations of forces which threaten the whole of the living
Chinese tradition.

Now the civilization of China, it is generally agreed, grew
up in the Northwest, in the basin of the Yellow River. The
period of its positive expansion is undocumented, for old as
Chinese written history is, it only begins at a period when
philosophers, historians and statesmen were taking stock of
a situation the broad lines of which had already been perma-
nently determined. The driving power of the Chinese, in the
period which, though undocumented, must have been the
most creative in their history, was directed toward the South
and Southeast. China south of the Yangtze was a conquest
a total conquest in terms of civilization, a partial conquest
in terms of population. It is for this reason that the center of
gravity of the most truly Chinese policies has always lain in
the North. The military vigor characteristic of the North,
during the long period of documented history, is based on
the survival of the ancient domination. It is not, as is occasion-
ally postulated, the result of the incorporation among the
northern Chinese of barbarian invaders. These invasions
merely reaffirmed a military superiority, in relation to the
South, which had always existed, and carried on a political
tradition which had long been established.

It is because the ancient center of gravity lay in the North
that novel ideas and alien borrowings have always been more
welcome in the South, for in the South the Chinese civiliza-
tion was not quite so ancient, nor so fully worked out; it had
undergone initial modifications in the process of establish-
ment, and above all it was not autochthonous. This is so
profoundly true that it is axiomatic in Chinese affairs that
the less characteristically Chinese any new social or political
movement is, and the more it contains of drastic innovation,
the further south is its point of initiation and center of gravity.

LIVING FORCE OF CHINESE CULTURE 99

As for the regions north of the Great Wall, the instinctive
attitude toward them was long ago manifested. A positive
expansion does not build limiting walls. There are no Great
Wall systems in the South. For at least twenty-five centuries,
every extension of Chinese authority beyond what is now the
line of the Great Wall, even when backed up by a move of
population, has had a peculiar lack of vitality. Strategically
and politically, as has already been shown, expansion beyond
the Wall was defensive. The prime object was to secure the
frontier; the acquisition of extra territory was incidental. The
social equivalent of this defensiveness can be detected in the
substitution of amorphous phenomena of mere spread for
phenomena of drive and directional energy. Emigration
beyond the Wall is bound up, in the consciousness of the
people, with proverbs and legends of lament and despair.
The most important positive attitude in such a vaguely
spreading population is always the "inward facing" char-
acteristic of the "reservoir" a characteristic which appar-
ently has no important equivalent among Southern Chinese
migrating to, for instance, Malaysia. These emigrants con-
tribute largely to Chinese political funds 2 but they do not
exercise a pressure on South China equivalent to the pressure
of the northern "reservoir" on North China.

THE MANCHURIAN PRESSURE ON CHINA

It must be evident that many of the forces already consid-
ered run counter to generalizations on Manchuria, and on
China and Chinese policies, that are based on Western for-
mulae or on analogies with Europe, America or Japan. If these

2 It is even doubtful how far political contributions from Chinese overseas are
spontaneous, since it appears that they arc to some extent elicited by threats of
reprisals against relatives still in China, or by "racketeering" methods of secret
societies.

ioo MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

forces have been correctly appreciated, we shall have to look
at the territorial question, not as the eager occupation of
"virgin" lands in which an impetuous nation is clamoring to
demonstrate its vigor, but as a wary maneuvering to main-
tain control over lands which dominate North China stra-
tegically, and in which Chinese authority has ebbed and
flowed for centuries. The immigrants arriving in such num-
bers are not spontaneously and competitively thrusting for-
ward to find room in which to release their pent-up energies;
they represent in the main a reluctant, eddying backwash
from a stream which, after flooding its ancient outlet, has
backed up sullenly, obliterating its own current. ^ Psycho-
logically, the colonists are less pioneers, carrying with them
a young and confident tradition, than refugees, looking over
their shoulders at a homeland unwillingly abandoned, and
burdened with everything they can save of the old tradition.
Nor, in spite of what Manchuria owes to rapid Western-
ization, can it be said that, in the popular consciousness,
Western technique is regarded as a new dispensation. West-
ern methods are only expedients; the more detached and
adventitious the manner in which they can be used, the better;
and the reward of successful exploitation with the use of
Western means is the ability to live better by the old stand-
ard. All exploitation and industry bear the marks of an old
society. That most significant phenomenon of a young society,
the man who has grown up with an industry and risen to
command it, is comparatively rare. On the contrary, the
men who dominate the use of .the new techniques are gener-
ally men who do not understand them and do not want to
understand them: they are interested in the profits, not in
the thing itself, and they employ subordinates to look after
the incomprehensible details. And which is highly illumi-
natingthis is generally regarded as natural and right.

LIVING FORCE OF CHINESE CULTURE 101

"Progress" is dominated by "big interests," absentee land-
lords and distant capitalists. It distinctly does not spring from
the roots of the nation, and is not carried on by ardent
pioneers, working spontaneously with their own hands to
further the promise of their new home.

Politically, the outlying provinces do not regard themselves
as primarily the outposts of a growing empire, in spite of the
fact that they inevitably function as outposts. Their forward
positions they occupy tentatively, and maintain by shifts
and compromises, and forward movement is hesitant. The
ambition of the most able and energetic men looks backward,
toward China. Here tradition is at its strongest. Subcon-
sciously, much more than consciously, men are powerfully
affected by the unbroken tradition of the "reservoir" where,
throughout history, the tendency to expand the authority in
China has been overborne by the tendency to turn and assert
authority in China. I do not see how a man can merge him-
self at all in the popular feeling of Manchuria and not detect
this urgent counter-drift; of which the meaning is, in practice,
that a comparatively strong policy of advance, no matter how
well planned at headquarters, tends to dwindle, on the front
of advance, into a comparatively feeble spread; while, con-
versely, a relatively slight pressure from beyond the frontier
inevitably develops into a relatively strong Manchurian
thrust toward China.

This is in many respects the most obscure and the most
important riddle of the future. The balance between a for-
ward frontier policy in Manchuria and the domestic relations
between Manchuria and China affects the status of all North-
eastern Asia, not only in terms of population but of social
system and civilization. It is commonly held that China's
enormous reserves of population predetermine the final result
but nevertheless the balance at present swings against China.

102 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

Thus there was a period of minimum Russian initiative in
Russo-Manchurian affairs, following on the death of Chang
Tso-lin in 1928. Russia may have been induced by the disap-
pearance of the greatest personal figure in Manchuria the
"Old Marshal," Chang Tso-lin and perhaps also by the ex-
pediency of cultivating good relations in Japan to try the
policy of allowing the Manchurian situation to develop itself.
This period was marked by the rapid acceleration of the
Chinese spread into North Manchuria, and the attainment
of a maximum rate of development of Chinese exploiting en-
terprises of all descriptions. The projection and initiation of
new railways was perhaps the most striking index of expan-
sion. The first sign of trouble from an over-hasty expansion
was an outbreak among the Barga Mongols; but as the Young
Mongol party in Barga received no strong support from either
Outer Mongolia or Russia, the trouble subsided, and the warn-
ing was disregarded. It may well be that the Russian attitude
of deference to Chinese ambitions was construed as an indica-
tion of weakness. At any rate, the Chinese "forward policy"
became still more assertive, until the crucial Russian interest
in the Chinese Eastern Railway was jeopardized. Russia
then called a halt, took up the challenge of the bold Chinese
intervention on the Chinese Eastern Railway, and forced the
crisis to a definite issue. The Chinese "forward policy" col-
lapsed. No serious effort was made to measure the power of
China against that of Russia. The initiative was once more
surrendered, and a policy adopted which amounts in practice
to a feeling out of the Russian strength and a manipulative
adjustment to it a policy, not of deciding what is to happen
and proceeding to make it happen, but of waiting until things
have happened and then dealing with the situation de-
fensively.
The consequences of this precipitate abandoning of the im-

LIVING FORCE OF CHINESE CULTURE 103

tiative can hardly be exaggerated, although the challenge and
conflict were so brief and quasi-unofficial, the underlying
issues so carefully obscured, and the name of war so disingen-
uously evaded by both sides. The whole northward drift has
almost openly been acknowledged to be a negative policy,
profiting opportunistically by every indication of lack of
resistance, but not itself informed with inward dynamic
power. The streams of colonization in the North have with-
ered, and even those in the South have shrunk. More impor-
tant still, the whole of Manchuria has frankly faced about
toward China once more. The question of the hour is not the
technical rectification by treaty of Russo-Manchurian ques-
tions, but the potential assertion of the power of Manchuria
in China proper. The troops and material which were held
in reserve at the time of the Russian conflict have been freely
deployed in China: and in spite of the modern names given
to many Chinese problems, the essential situation reveals the
cleavage between North and South China, and the power
of the "reservoir" impending over North China, in a form
more pronounced than at any time since the decay of the
Ming dynasty and the rise of the Manchus. The fact that
Manchuria is still a comparatively empty and undeveloped
country, with an inexhaustible supply of settlers from China,
and with railways to bring them in and distribute them, and
capital to launch them in many enterprises, merely heightens
the paradox. The outward-facing frontiers are still frontiers
of defense; the front of decisive action is still the line of the
Great Wall. So true is this that it is virtually impossible in
any moment of crisis to dispatch the best troops and the best
material toward the north. The prestige accruing from
success would enable the successful general to turn back with
irresistible momentum on Manchuria and China. Armies
of the North are armies of defense and forlorn hope. There-

104 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

fore it is a commonplace in the armies of Manchuria that
orders for the North endanger the career of an ambitious man,
while orders for the South are welcomed as an opening of the
gates of opportunity. 3

8 While this passage was written before the Japanese occupation of Manchuria,
it may well be allowed to stand. The Japanese are hardly likely to make them-
selves leaders of the "reservoir" in die old Manchu style, though it is quite likely
that, having studied Manchurian history with care, they will attempt it. They
are too much alien to the tradition. If they consolidate their position in Manchuria,
they are most likely to replace the old style of "reservoir" pressure with a Western
style of pressure, exercised through Manchuria and bearing on China proper. If,
on the other hand, they should retire to their old position, the rule of China could
not be established afresh in Manchuria except by conceding increased power to
Manchuria in the affairs of China "within the Wall."

CHAPTER V

THE RUSSIANS TURN TO THE EAST
RUSSIANS AND MANCHUS

IT is hardly surprising that the modern period of coloniza-
tion in Manchuria opened with a series of defensive measures;
that these measures failed, and that the first true acceleration
of settlement began with the construction of railways which
were essentially forms of Western aggression.

Although the Manchus are commonly held to have initi-
ated and to have been responsible for a policy of exclusion in
Manchuria, in reality they were highly unoriginal and merely
confirmed a state of affairs which (whatever the people con-
cerned) was usual and traditional. The Chinese Bannermen
in Eastern Liaoning, the Mongols in Western Liaoning and
north of Jehol, the Manchus from Mukden northward to the
junction of the Hurka (Mutan) with the Sungari, each dom-
inated a "sphere of interest" in the "reservoir ." Imperial
rulings repeatedly confirmed the autonomy of the Mongols
within their own sphere; an autonomy which included the
right of being tried and punished by their own courts. These
rights were even confirmed where Chinese or Manchu
colonies were planted at strategic points in territory taken
over from the Mongols; and apparently when cases of mixed
jurisdiction arose, affecting both Mongols and Manchus, they
had to pass through two courts. These distinctions are
nothing like so clear as between Manchu and Chinese Ban-
nermen, undoubtedly because of the rapidity with which the
Manchus "turned Chinese."

r

105

io6 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

From the Manchus northward the "reservoir" merged in
an undefined way into the "unregenerate," largely unknown
and largely unwanted regions. Tribes like the Daghurs, the
Solons and the Gold, incorporated into the Manchu Banner
organization as "New Manchus," mark unmistakably the
transition between the people of privilege and the tribes of
"outer darkness"; the Gilyak, the Tungus of Siberia, and,
finally, the Russians. The reluctance to expand northward
is clearly borne out by the Treaty of Nerchinsk. JThe whole
of the Amur_ basin and much pf Siberia, ,was,,.in^reality^a
no-man Viand. The jErst Russians began to appear when the
Manchus were invading China. This is a fact which has
always passed almost unnoticed; yet it is probably of high
importance. It is only because the penetration of the Russians
to the Amur and the rise of the Manchu power are alike
insufficiently documented that the two series of events are
usually passed over as if they were merely accidentally con-
temporary, and had no linked significance. A consideration
of the general structure and style of the history of the region,
however, makes it practically certain that the advance of the
Russians into extreme Eastern Siberia and the emergence of
the Manchus on the edge of the Manchurian "reservoir,"
were both parts of a series of interconnected tribal move-
ments, which originated among the extra-"reservoir" or unre-
generate tribes, and are therefore undocumented and cannot
be reconstructed. 1 Although the Manchus must have been
impelled originally by pressure from beyond the "reservoir,"

first Russian pioneers in this region were Cossacks; and it is not for
nothing that the very name Cossack was borrowed by the Russians from the
nomadic Qazaqs of Southwestern Siberia. The first Cossacks were adventurers
who struck out into the wilderness for various reasons of restlessness and discontent,
and borrowed the name to fit their quasi-tribal life. In their later migrations they
functioned to an extraordinary degree in a "tribal" manner, and there was there-
fore every reason, when they first appeared on the Amur, to consider them as merely
the latest comers out of the unknown wilderness which had so often bred fierce
and incomprehensible tribes.

RAILWAY MAP OF MAf

FOUR NORTH-EASTERN PROVING
of miles

Reproduced by permission of Fore,

THE RUSSIANS TURN TO THE EAST 107

all we have now, because the middle links have dropped out,
are the apparently independent phenomena of the emergence
of the Manchus as organizers and leaders of the "reservoir,"
and the appearance of Cossack adventurers on the Amur.
The success of the Manchus in their southward movement
allowed an easing off of inter-tribal pressure, and this accounts
for the loss of continuity. Yet what was happening, during
the lull in tribal movements was (from the point of view of
Chinese history) the assumption by the Russians of the posi-
tion of latest-arrived tribe among the "unre generate northern
barbarian/'; and, under the thin veil of "modern world
history," that is the function the Russians have continued to
exercise, and still exercise, on the whole frontier from the
Pamirs to the Pacific. The present stratification Siberia-
Amur-"Manchurian Reservoir"-North China, which trans-
mits cumulating pressures southward, but diminishing pres-
sures northward, is the full equivalent of the ancient strati-
fication (which also is not yet out of the picture) definable as
Outer Mongolia-Gobi-"Inner Mongolian Reservoir"-Great
Wall.

In fact the early Manchu policy toward the Russians must
have been characteristically in the "reservoir" historical style.
Although the Manchus cannot but have been aware that the
Russian raids up to the Amur and the consequent Russian as-
cendancy among the "unregenerate tribes" corresponded with
their own ascendancy in the "reservoir" and their irruption
into China, they made no determined effort to clear and define
the frontier. They were content with measures of a punitive
and preventive order. Finally, after Albazin had changed
hands more than once, in an indecisive manner, and before the
relative strength of Russia and China had been put to any-
thing like definite proof, frontier relations were adjusted by
the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) when the Manchus were at

io8 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

the height of their power. The Russians agreed to withdraw
north of the Amur watershed; but in spite of the Chinese
(Manchu) claims preferred in the treaty, it is clear that there
was no desire to expand into and occupy this territory.

In fact the Manchus, thereafter, kept well to the south of
the Amur, except for a few outposts. The importance of the
great dockyard at Ninguta (later transferred to Kirin city)
and the river fleet guarding the Sungari all the way to the
Amur was not a function of "empire building" but one of
patrol. For the rest, the maintenance of a huge, virtually
uninhabited and trackless forested waste between Manchus
and Russians minimized frontier incidents. All Northern
Manchuria more than half the area of the three modern
provinces became for the Manchus precisely what Tibet is
to the British in India: a buffer region where the encroach-
ment of another power would cause apprehension, but where
the responsibility of occupation and government was by all
means to be avoided, short of the most imperative necessity.
For the Russians, on the other hand, it became what the Dark
and Bloody Ground of Kentucky was to the American
pioneers: the land of expansion, of adventure and empire-
building for the sake of empire-building. Even with a com-
plete lack of population-pressure behind them they were
impelled forward. The wilderness, as wilderness, had an
attraction for them which it has never had for the Chinese
pioneer.

All of this confirms what has already been said: that the
Manchu laws which hampered emigration to Manchuria,
although in the first instance they did maintain "preserves" of
the privileged "reservoir" populations, were also congruent
with the traditional Chinese statecraft, in maintaining the
balance of the Empire by discouraging any pronounced exten-
sion of population to the North. It is evident from edicts and

THE RUSSIANS TURN TO THE EAST 109

imperial pronunciamentos dealing with the "reservoir" that
the paramount Manchu principle was not to reserve the waste
land for Manchu expansion, but to keep out Chinese because
they might contaminate the vigorous Manchu tradition.
Even when attempts were made to plant colonies of Peking
Manchus in the Nonni-Sungari region (Petuna), the govern-
ing idea was not a "forward policy" for the North, but the
feeling that there were too many idle Manchus in China,
that they were losing the Manchu speech and tradition, and
that by moving them back to the "reservoir" they might
recover the "reservoir" spirit. ^

From this point of view the "reservoir" functioned effi-
ciently almost up to the end of the dynasty. It kept up a supply
of troops whose loyalty was to the dynasty primarily; who
were never used for "opening up" the North, but merely for
holding it down, and who were regularly drafted for service
in China as well as on the frontier. Thus the Solons were
drawn on to garrison Urga, Kobdo and Uliassutai in Outer
Mongolia the stronghold of the "unregenerate" and
Chuguchak and Hi in Chinese Turkestan. They were also
employed in campaigns against Tibet, and against the West-
ern Muhammadans in the eighteen hundred and sixties.
All of these duties were, strategically, defensive. Manchu
Bannermen from Kirin province also served against the
Muhammadans, and against the Taiping rebels on the Yang-
tze. Mongol troops from the Inner Mongolian and Man-
churian "reservoir," under a Mongol commander, not only
safeguarded the north of China while Ward and after him
Gordon trained the Ever-Victorious Army which crushed
the Taipings, but were also the most effective of the troops
opposed to the French and British advance on Peking in 1860.
Had an energetic expansion of colonists into Manchuria

reversed the traditional "reservoir" style which the Manchus

no MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

did not originate but took over, not only the balance but the
orientation of the Empire would have been disturbed (as the
balance of the Republic is now disturbed by the vacillation
between inward-facing and outward-facing policies), while
none of the ancient problems of China would have been any
nearer solution. It is perfectly true that if there had been a
spontaneous, dynamic urge within the Chinese people, impel-
ling them toward Manchuria, subsequent developments
would have been quite different. As far as that goes, there
would never have been a Great Wall. Nothing could be
more certain than that there was no such overwhelming urge,
and it follows that the restrictive measures passed by the
Manchus were not felt as monstrous or unduly repressive by
the Chinese of China, who were, in fact, still completely satis-
fied with the grand and final gesture of the Great Wall It is
hard, therefore, to concede total validity to the post-Revolution
charges of narrow selfishness that have been preferred against
the Manchus, as if they alone were responsible for the char-
acter of Chinese northern frontier policy.

THE RUSSIAN ADVANCE DOWN THE AMUR

In effect, then, it was the slackening of the Russian advance
after the Treaty of Nerchinsk that allowed the northern
frontier regions to become stabilized during the Manchu rule
in China. The Manchus themselves were perfectly content so
long as the Russians remained out of sight, and in order to
help them stay out of sight were willing to refrain from doing
more than patrolling the Sungari and keeping a watch on the
Amur. They thus forwent in practice the claim advanced in
the Treaty of Nerchinsk to a dominion extending up to the
northern watershed of the Amur.

It might be possible to draw up an extreme accusation

THE RUSSIANS TURN TO THE EAST in

against Russia of having filched enormous areas of Siberia; but
realistically speaking it can only be said that the Russians,
although comparatively late arrivals, occupied effectively
territories which might have been occupied by China, but
never had been. In point of fact most of these territories, up
to the Treaty of Nerchinsk, could not validly be assigned to
any owners except scattered nomadic tribes which claimed
"ownership" in the nomadic sense of freedom to move, not
in the elaborate civilized sense of theoretical group ownership
superimposed on subdivided individual ownerships. "Trib-
ute," chiefly in the form of sable pelts, found its way from
these regions to Peking; but it also, at an early period, was
offered to the Tsar.

An historical analysis of the real status of "tributary" tribes
would be of the greatest interest. Undoubtedly, many "trib-
utary" offerings were in fact a form of trade, the tribute being
purchased by the appointed officials. In extreme instances,
the nominal tribute to the suzerain power was actually a form
of levy on the suzerain power; the "presents" offered in ex-
change for the "tribute" greatly exceeding the value of the
"tribute" itself. Thus the tribute offered by the Mongol tribes
was in large measure a disguise for the subsidies paid to the
lords of the "reservoir"; but in the Amur region generally the
tribute offerings appear to have been obtained chiefly by
trade. The sable-tribute claimed by the Cossacks appears to
have been much more in the nature of an oppressive ex-
action; and it was largely the diminution in the supply of
sables, and the consequent extension of Cossack forays into the
forests south of the Amur, that brought about the acute po-
litical situation leading finally to the Treaty of Nerchinsk.

The lull after the Treaty of Nerchinsk lasted up to the mid^
die of the nineteenth century, when the great modern Rus-
sian surge toward the Pacific began to gather way. The ad-

ii2 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

vance of the Russians into Northeastern Asia, although slow
in point of time, was one of extraordinary vigor, considering
th^great range of distance and the difficulties overcome. It
has been pointed out that the Cossacks who led the advance
operated largely in a "tribal" manner. As a "mixed group"
they are in some respects comparable to the mixed groups
of the Chinese-Mongol frontier, but with the difference that
they penetrated to a much greater depth and that they never
had the tendency to reverse political action characteristic of
the "reservoir." This all-important difference allowed them
to become to a great extent enlisters and leaders of other
tribes. The heritage of this tendency can be seen even at the
present day; its most important phenomenon being the^use
of the Buriat Mongols of Siberia in extending Russian policies
in Mongolia.

Indeed the whole nineteenth-century Russian advance in-
herited a great deal of the Cossack spirit, although in point of
numbers the Cossacks were swamped by peasants, and al-
though the colonizing spirit as a whole was modified strongly
by the convict exiles. One of the striking characteristics of
the Cossack spirit of adventure into the wilderness was that
it operated in spite of governmental policy, and was at its
best when free of official influence. The Russian Government,
like that of China, was not originally oriented toward the
wilderness. From the time of Peter the Great there had been
a strong movement of Europeanization; higher policy con-
demned commitments in the vast unknown East. Therefore
the regular type of the Russian advance was that government
authority, without having proposed or administered the ad-
vance, was more or less dragged after it perforce. In this lies
the great contrast between Russia and China. The Chinese
people as a whole were in accord with the policy which re-
frained from frontier adventures, while the Russians, in de-

THE RUSSIANS TURN TO THE EAST 113

spite of policy and apart altogether from such "natural causes'*
as population pressure, impelled solely by an inward unrest,
broke away into the East and drew the government after them
into a situation which practically forced the later deliberate
policy of Eastern expansion.

The tradition of the roving adventurer goes back clearly at
least as far as the mighty Yermak, who conquered "Sibir"
as an outlaw, and offered his private conquest to the Tsar as
a bribe to recover lawful public standing. In much the same
spirit the great Muraviev, on his own initiative, and using the
men and resources of Siberia alone and deceiving the home
government into the belief that he was only organizing a de-
fense, undertook to reach the Pacific and succeeded. The
home government was then confronted with the alternative
of withdrawing, which would not only have damaged its
prestige in the eyes of China but, in view of the recent defeat
in the Crimea, would have been a confession of weakness to
the world at large, or of consolidating the position won. Thus
Muraviev was able to conclude the Treaty of Aigun, in 1858,
which the home government backed up and amplified in the
negotiations at Peking in 1860. Russia then stood on the
Pacific, with a port at Vladivostok and a Manchurian border
following the course (no longer merely the watershed) of the
Amur and Ussuri. The buffer territories established in part
through the Treaty of Nerchinsk and in part through sub-
sequent Manchu policy were largely in Russian hands, and
a situation had been created which compelled the govern-
ment to implement the eastward-directed ambition of the
pioneers. The crux of the situation, historically, was the mo-
ment when Muraviev, acting on his own initiative, confronted
the home government with advantageous treaty terms which
had either to be accepted or inconveniently disavowed.
The Russians had now emerged as the modern exemplars of

ii 4 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

the northern barbarians, threatening the "reservoir" and
therefore the whole power of China. As for the tribes of the
"unregenerate" region, far from being in a position to stave off
the Russians and thus act as the pawns of China, they were
obviously incorporated in the Russian advance; witness the
enlistment of "Buriat Cossacks" from a comparatively early
period. Yet even so, the reluctance of China to face the north
was so deep-seated that counter-policies did not develop until
Russian railway construction began first to fill up Siberia
and then to project railways in Manchuria, which ranked
definitely and unmistakably as methods of aggression. It was
not until the late eighteen hundred and eighties that the Man-
chu Government was forced to recognize that the "reservoir"
frontier structure, as it stood, was inadequate, and that an
active attempt must be made to fill up the northern front in
order to make a stand against the northern barbarians; by
which time the Russian momentum was too great for the un-
aided power of China to divert it.

In default of a, flow of raiding, thrusting Chinese pioneers
who might have rivaled and forestalled the Russian adventur-
ers, it was necessary to undertake artificial colonization under
government encouragement. The method adopted was that
of throwing open "public" domains and allotting land grants
on terms which might tempt a supply of settlers. Colonies
were thus established not only in Manchuria but in Outer
Mongolia, and a partial screen of agricultural Chinese was
actually settled along the Orkhon river, masking the entry
into Outer Mongolia from Kiakhta. So weak were its foun-
dations, however, that it collapsed after the Chinese Revolu-
tion in 1911, and it is said that there is now practically no
trace of the colonists.

The weakness of the colonization fostered out of policy
alone was that it went against the grain of the characteristic

THE RUSSIANS TURN TO THE EAST 115

Chinese method of advance. The settlers much preferred to
filter up through territory already occupied, and to establish
themselves on the fringe, where success would mean early in-
corporation into the main body. They had never inclined to
the "raiding," deep-penetrating Cossack style of advance,
which resulted in isolated settlements; though settlements
approximating to this type are to be found, notably in the
Ussuri region. On the whole, they were shy of getting too
far beyond the "spread." The small element which had a
tradition of penetrating among the Mongols by means of
"going native" to a greater or less extent was already fully oc-
cupied. The numbers of such people, rooted in a special
tradition, cannot be summarily augmented; and moreover
they were not exactly of the Cossack type of combined roving
adventurers and land-fast settlements, having been too
strongly modified by the Mongol tradition.

In the upshot, the politically encouraged frontier colonies
proved to be separated by too great a gap from the main front
of the "spread." Nor could the "spread" itself be greatly
speeded up, for lack of spontaneous desire for emigration in
the people of China proper. The land-grant policy therefore
collapsed. Its chief result was that huge tracts passed into the
hands of individuals or firms in which the officials who had
handled the grants were, as a group, heavily interested; but
thereafter, for lack of colonists and ability to exploit dynam-
ically, they remained undeveloped. The holders resigned
themselves to wait patiently while the "spread" approached
the regions of political anxiety. The main result was a more
general recognition of the importance of the northern fron-
tier (an importance in no way different from that it had as-
sumed in cycle after cycle of assault from the barbarians^of
the north); but it remained characteristically a defensive
frontier. There was no sign of transformation into a fron-

n6 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

tier of expansion. In the meantime, the Russian expansion

r . . . - ^.U-^,,,VU foilroT7 rnnstniC-

FOREIGN AGGRESSION AND CHINESE EXPANSION

The period that Mowed, that of the wars between Japan
and China and Japan and Russia, need hardly be discussed
in detail. It is plain enough that they originated in the rivalry
between Japan and Russia for strategic command of the
Korean-Manchurian region; the stake of Japan being con-
mental security and the stake of Russia an ice-free Pacific port,
which alone could energize the vast conquests in Siberia.
Not only did the Chinese defensive front in Manchuria break
down, but in the second stage, that of the war between Japan
and Russia, she was compelled to endure passively the cam-
paigns of alien armies on her territory. The upshot of the
period of warfare was the beginning of a period of active
exploitation by Japan and Russia, in which China was a
partner more in the sense of being exploited than of sharing
in the exploitation. It was the construction of the Chinese
Eastern and South Manchuria Railways, both enterprises of
exploiting "Imperialism," which determined the future of
Manchuria as a scene of successful Chinese colonization, for
which the Peking-Mukden Railway (itself, from the Chinese
point of view, not free from the taint of foreign aggression)
was not alone sufficient.

Another result of the wars was the confirmation of the
Chinese tide to sovereignty in Manchuria, which can thus be
regarded as dependent to a certain extent on the adjustment
of the policies of Russia and Japan, after failure on the part
of China to defend it effectively. The struggle, in fact, veered

THE RUSSIANS TURN TO THE EAST 117

away from questions of political title and became largely
transformed into a rivalry of economic control. Consequently
all Chinese measures in Manchuria have continued, ever since,
to be strongly influenced by necessities of defense. The mod-
ern phase of apparently triumphant Chinese expansion in
Manchuria is, in its other aspect, a desperate struggle to main-
tain control. It is commonly said that the establishment of a
successful and growing Chinese population had settled for
all time the question of sovereignty in Manchuria. This is
true as far as it goes, but it burkes the most vital issue; for
the question of sovereignty in Manchuria has to a certain ex-
tent (and by virtue of alien policies, not of Chinese policies)
become a side-issue; whereas the true crux, the struggle for
the initiative in exploitation and real control is a living issue
by no means yet decided. Chinese, when an enterprise of far-
reaching importance is under discussion in Manchuria, have
often to consider not only "What do we want to do?" but
"What can we do ?" and "What must we do ?" This forces the
conclusion that the period of "foreign privilege" in China is
by no means over, but is merely passing into a new phase,
disguised under novel forms, leaving the ultimate antagonism
between East and West still uneliminated.

For, from this point of view, Chinese colonization in Man-
churia, which is generally regarded as the most important
contemporary phenomenon of successful Chinese expan-
sionism, appears as one of the functions of successful foreign
aggression. All the phenomena of mass colonization are in-
herent in the very forms of Western-imposed exploiting enter-
prises in Manchuria; but, until the advent of the West,^ there
was nothing inherent in the Chinese contact with the "reser-
voir" except a fortuitous and gradual "spread." Therefore one
of the capital problems of Manchurian colonization, from the
Chinese point of view, is the recovery of the initiative, of

ii8 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

the power to determine the degree of Westernization to be
aimed at, and of the control of the rate of Westernization.
The type and trend of Chinese colonization having been so
. largely predetermined by Western aggression and exploita-
tion, the influx of Chinese colonists remains, to a great ex-
tent, an induced "reaction/' and to that extent cannot be con-
sidered an original "pioneer" movement

CHAPTER VI

LAND AND POWER IN CHINESE MANCHURIA
PUBLIC LAND AND TRIBAL LAND

THE types of land tenure were so well recognized in old
Manchuria that, when rapid colonization began, there was
no problem of creating new systems. The old land laws and
methods of administration could be applied, but on a larger
scale, and with gradual adaptation to the accelerating rate of
settlement.

Since, in Manchu regions, there had already been an easy
transition from a conception of "public" land to a theory of
"state" land, no problem arose except the question of ad-
ministrative processes in allotting state land to private holders.
In general, mere "squatter" occupation appears to have been
sufficient, in the early period, to establish an option of owner-
ship. Thereafter all that was required was official assessment
of the land for taxation. At a later period, when large grants
were made from the public domain, the land was, in theory,
first assessed by officials and then turned over to colonists.
In the case of large grants, it was understood that the owner
would himself find and establish cultivators, and that there-
after the tax rate would be adjusted according to the degree
of cultivation. If squatters were found already established
in nominally empty lands, it was easy for them to make terms
with the new owner, because their cultivation of the land had
enhanced its value, and they provided a nucleus for new settle-
ment. The development of rent-purchase methods for the

120 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

transfer of land from large holders to small holders appears
to have been early and spontaneous.

This type of colonization naturally affected first such val-
leys and plains as were most attractive for agricultural occu-
pation. Moreover there seems to be a deep-seated Chinese
prejudice which retards the allotment of mountain wilder-
ness to private ownership. It is probably based on the feeling
that such "natural" wealth as mines and timber (not man-
created, like agricultural wealth) is public property, and
should not pass into outright private ownership, though it
may be exploited through contracts and concessions leased
to private enterprise through official agencies.

"Tribal" questions, largely because of the status of moun-
tain and forest wilderness, have always been comparatively
unimportant in the Manchu region and the adjacent "un-
regenerate" lands of northernmost Kirin and Heilungchiang.
The tribesmen were few in numbers and in the main kept
to the forested ranges. Where colonization did intrude into
their hunting domains, they either withdrew or became cor-
rupted, as savages always are corrupted by civilization, es-
pecially by civilized traders; and such remnants as now sur-
vive are rapidly being extinguished.

The most interesting question of a "tribal" type, or nearly
tribal type, that did develop was perhaps that affecting the
Tungusic tribe known to the Russians as Goldi and to the
Chinese as one of the group of "Fishskin Tatars." The fate of
the Daghur of the Nonni valley, in their transition from tribes-
men to Bannennen and later in the inundation of their land
by Chinese colonists, is probably a close parallel to the fate
of the Goldi or Gold,

The valley habitat of the Gold on the lower Sungari was
of a kind to attract Chinese colonists, especially after the open-
ing of steamer traffic, about 1903-04 under Russian influence

LAND AND POWER 121

(a clear case of the determination of Chinese colonization
trends by Western enterprise). An arrangement was therefore
made which has a certain resemblance to the American Indian
"Reservation," with the difference that the American Indians
were usually penned into their reservations to get rid of them,
while the Gold were given what amounted to an option on the
best land. The Gold owed this to the fact that they were auxil-
iaries of the Manchus, and technically had the status of Man-
chu Bannermen in the division known as "New Manchus,"
and to the fact that the project of colonization was inaugurated
while the Manchu dynasty still ruled originally with the in-
tention of frontier defense, although colonization never got
under way until steamer traffic was opened and the "aggres-
sors" were, in reality, within the border.

The Gold have long been a non-nomadic people. They live
largely by fishing and by hunting; but though the technique
of travel and camping used by the hunting parties are remi-
niscent of an earlier nomadism, and though they travel over
great distances and are away from home for long periods,
their society is based on fixed village homes. When coloniza-
tion began, therefore, they were allotted strips of land ad-
joining their villages, and as these were regularly on the banks
of the Sungari, Amur, and Ussuri, they held potentially the
most valuable land in centers of future colonization. These
block grants were made according to the size of the village,
and then distributed to individuals by the clan and village
organizations of the tribesmen themselves. The tragedy of
the Gold has been that their privileged Banner position had
already given them a taste for the benefits of the Chinese
type of culture, without a secure enough grounding in it to
enable them to meet the incoming Chinese on equal terms.
Having already, like the early Manchus, begun the process of
turning culturally Chinese, they had no instinct to migrate

122 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

away from the new pressure. Above all, having learned most
of what they knew of the Chinese culture from a position of
social privilege and guided by tastes of self-indulgence, they
had not acquired the habit of trade. Consequently their lands
have passed almost entirely into the hands of the Chinese, and
they have become a depressed class, hangers-on of the more
able newcomers.

Hunting is now more important to the Gold than fishing;
and they also practice a comparatively slovenly agriculture.
They bring back from the mountains not only furs, but such
valuable ingredients of Chinese medicine as elk-horn in the
velvet, and ginseng. These they sell to the Chinese dealers.
They spend riotously the money thus earned and remain
poor. On account of their f ecklessness the Chinese, who are
short of women, can outbid the Gold themselves for Gold
women as wives, and this has finally determined the ex-
tinction of the Gold as a separate people.

Between the time when the Chinese began to enter the
lower Sungari valley in large numbers and the time when
they unmistakably dominated the Gold, there was a good deal
of inter-racial trouble. At first the Gold, holding the privi-
leged status of Bannermen, domineered over the Chinese.
Then came a period when the Gold were alarmed by the in-
flux of Chinese. At this time, in spite of the new official
sanction granted to Chinese colonization, murders of Chinese
were common. All travel was unsafe and all strangers went
in danger of their lives in lonely places. The trouble was ag-
gravated by the fact that many of the newcomers were bad
characters, that questionable methods were used in trade,
and that one of the axioms of trade was the demoralization
of the Gold by drink and opium. As for drink and opium,
they were inevitable, for the Gold demanded them; but none
the less they resented the advantage taken of them through

LAND AND POWER 123

their own vices. Chinese ascendancy grew inevitably, was
confirmed with the fall of the Manchu dynasty, and reached
the stage when the Gold could be swindled with impunity
and no longer dared make reprisals. Thereafter they sank
rapidly to their present lamentable condition.

Yet it is remarkable that in spite of the period of lawless-
ness (now continued in the non-racial form of chronic ban-
ditry) the remnant of the Gold are not regarded by the Chi-
nese with anything like that deep-seated hostility which per-
sists between Chinese and Mongols, but on the whole only
with a sort of good-humored contempt. This must be very
largely due to the fact that they were never numerous enough
to threaten to displace the Chinese, once colonization had be-
guna contrast with the Mongol regions, where periods of
Chinese advance have alternated with temporary Mongol
recovery.

It is true that the Gold were associated with the Manchus,
who were, like the Mongols, direct conquerors of the Chinese,
and therefore, in kind, "oppressors," though they had never
handled the Chinese so roughly as the Mongols had. On the
other hand the Gold, like the Manchus, had always shown a
decided tendency, in spite of Imperial policies which aimed
at keeping them "tribal," to admire and adopt Chinese ways
of life though they had begun with the upper strata of privi-
lege, not with the groundwork strata of the peasant, artisan
and trader. Their chief interest as a remnant-people is there-
fore the manner in which they preserved, until very recently,
a social transition-stage between the "tribal" and the "reser-
voir," of a kind which can confidently be labeled "early post-
conquest Manchu."

In the comparatively simple land administration of the
Manchu "reservoir" and the adjacent "unregenerate" regions,
the historical stages can be satisfactorily distinguished. People

124 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

like the Manchus and Gold, of an original hunting nomad
stock (who almost undoubtedly once owned reindeer) be-
came attached to permanent village sites in great river valleys
in the wilderness. It may be that one reason for their settling
down was the fact that they had ranged south of country
suitable to reindeer. While the villages were permanent,
hunting was kept up by parties which stayed out in the forest
for weeks, and wandered over great distances. A garden-
patch agriculture grew up in the villages, with family or in-
dividual ownership of the land cultivated. Villages were not
restricted to single clans, but members of the same clan lived
in different villages. This weakened any idea of clan terri-
tory, and all the wilderness remained free to all. Parties from
different villages traveled to and hunted in the same forests
and mountains. What remained of inter-tribal division was
almost obliterated when all the people were united into a
military nation; tribal divisions persisted only in distinctions
between such groups as the Gold and Daghur, who were
outside of the immediate scope of the original Manchu
unification.

The similar tribal groups that once existed among the
Manchus proper can now be traced only in very faint tradi-
tions. A territorial military cadre, that of the Banners (which
perhaps derived its numeration in series of eights from some
antecedent tribal league, but which retained few tribal func-
tions), was superimposed on the clans and villages. The
territorial associations of villages became more important,
and the wilderness, which had once been public in the sense
that nobody had any more right to it than anybody else, be-
came public in the sense that it was the domain of the sover-
eign, die lord of land and people alike. Even so, in practice,
the custom survived that a clearing in the wilderness and
the tilling of fields established private ownership, subject

LAND AND POWER 125

only to the payment of taxes. Efforts were made, however,
to restrict the opening of new land to the privileged people,
the Manchus and other Bannermen.

In this social structure a new policy of colonization did not
require a change of basic social attitudes. All that was re-
quired was enlargement of the privilege of settlement, to in-
clude non-Banner Chinese. Tracts of the imperial domain
were thrown open, allotted to firms or individuals, and de-
veloped by attracting settlers. Questions of land measure-
ment, land purchase and land taxation could be dealt with
by the existing official organization, assisted by extra land
commissioners. As population increased, the administrative
problem could be met (as it still is met) by subdividing the
areas of government. A "county" of great area, with a popu-
lation concentrated at a few points, can thus be split into
several new counties.

In Mongol-inhabited regions, the tribal concept of land-
ownership, and the antipathy felt for individual property in
land make the problem radically different although, super-
ficially, the mechanics- of administration, with the allotment
of land by special commissioners and the organization of
"counties," do not seem to differ greatly. Above all, the per-
missive expedient of allowing individual ownership to be
constituted by occupation and tillage could not work except
as an irritant, and could not be practiced at all except at points
where Chinese colonists felt that they could choose their own
way of doing things in spite of the Mongols in which case
the first operation in clearing the land was likely to be clear-
ing it of Mongols. That "squatter" claims run counter to the
Mongol tradition is borne out by the fact that where the
Mongols themselves do practice tillage, for the sake of neces-
sary winter supplies, it is common to enforce a rule that tie
same land may not be permanently cultivated. This practice

126 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

was additionally encouraged by the fact that Mongol tillage,
being crude and slipshod, allowed fields to become overrun
with weeds. Moreover the Mongol instinct of the "freedom
to move" must be considered, even where, as in the "reser-
voir,^ the tribes have long been allotted to defined territorial
stations. It is my opinion that, apart altogether from the
lesson of experience that Chinese encroachment on unused
Mongol lands is followed by encroachment on indispensable
pasture, the instinct of the "freedom to move" is an important
factor in the Mongol reluctance to allow colonization even on
lands that have been unused as pasture for many years.

In order, therefore, to take over even unpopulated Mongol
land it is necessary to deal first with a tribe. The land must
first be taken over by the state from the tribe, and thus, after
having passed through the intermediary status of "public
domain," be allotted to private ownership. The concomitant
social adjustment that has to be made is thus not, as in the
Manchu "reservoir," the abolition of the privilege of a class,
or the enlargement of the privilege to include non-Banner
immigrants (which comes to the same thing) but the almost
complete withdrawal of one people, and the total abolition
of their culture, to be replaced by a hostile population and an
inimical culture. Hence the swamping of the Manchus by
a largely contemptuous but at the same time largely tolerant
Chinese population, in contrast with the extrusion (often
amounting to gradual extermination) of the Mongols, ac-
companied by chronic and unavoidable ill-feeling between
Mongols and Chinese.

The two elements of latest growth in the Mongol culture
the development of the princes into a petty territorial feudal
aristocracy, and the growth of lamaism, of which the most
important phenomenon is the establishment of monasteries
both do violence to the old Mongol instinct for free move-

LAND AND POWER 127

ment. The monasteries, because they cannot be moved when
the Mongols withdraw, often become pawns of Chinese pol-
icy. Just as princes frequently sacrifice the interests of the
tribe as a whole to their own interest in special privileges and
fixed revenues, so monasteries, to preserve their corporate
existence and the privileges of the hierarchy, tend to throw
their influence on the side of the Chinese when the land passes
under Chinese administration. Many lama monasteries,
founded in tribal lands, now stand surrounded by a Chinese
population. The Mongols continue to come into them on
pilgrimage, and pressure is often exercised on the high lamas
to secure their aid as intermediaries in negotiating for fresh
tracts of land to be taken over for settlement.

As for the princes, their "feudal" status has been badly un-
settled by the fall of the Empire. The feudal loyalty felt by
a prince for an emperor can hardly be transferred intact to
a republic. This point has, in fact, been openly raised in Outer
Mongolia, as one of the titles to freedom and independence of
the Mongol Republic. There the stand is taken that the
Outer Mongolian princes, now succeeded by the Mongol Re-
public, owed allegiance to the Manchu emperors of China,
but not to the Chinese nation. With the abdication of the
last emperor, therefore, the Mongols became an autonomous
people, as they had been when the Ming emperors ruled in
China, and were free to identify their fortunes with China or
not, as they chose. The princely families of Outer Mongolia,
never so strong as those of Inner Mongolia, because they had
not come within the closer organization of the true "reser-
voir," have now gone under. The princes of Inner Mongolia,
therefore, are left in an awkward position. Any move on
their part to identify their tribes with those of Outer Mon-
golia would mean the abolition of their own tides and loss
of their hereditary privileges. Every concession made to the

128 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

suzerainty of China, on the other hand, means a loss of actual
power and a fall of status to the position of subsidized figure-
heads. In this the monastic foundations are practically at one
with the princes; and none the less for the fact that the high-
est lamas are frequently relatives of ruling princes. Under
such conditions it has been inevitable that the Inner Mongo-
lian princes and high lama dignitaries should as a class have
become tools of Chinese policy; though at times individual
princes and lamas have taken the lead in the abortive and
hopeless (but also inevitable) Mongol rebellions that inter-
mittently interrupt the modern Chinese advance. The tend-
ency to look out for their own interests at the expense of
their people is made stronger by the Chinese method of ex-
propriating land. Not only is the land arbitrarily, and against
the main trend of Mongol tradition, treated as the personal
domain of the prince; but thereafter, for lack of government
funds to pay out cash compensation for expropriated land,
the prince is assigned a perpetual rental interest. Temple
foundations, in the same way, are assigned a rental compen-
sation to take the place of the previous income from temple
herds. At the same time, as the Mongols continue to visit the
temple, the trade of Chinese merchants benefits and the temple
itself and its lamas become hostages for the good behavior
of the Mongols.

When the land has thus been taken over by the Chinese
officials, an immediate cash fund to cover administrative ex-
penses is raised by selling it to colonists, or rather to colo-
nizing entrepreneurs. The sale price is very low; it is equiva-
lent to the payment of an option or premium which secures
to the investor the future profit on the land when its value
has been raised by development. Normally, there is an inter-
mediate stage in colonization, the majority of the land being
taken over from the official land-commissioners by individu-

LAND AND POWER 129

als or firms with large capital, who redistribute it to tic actual
farming colonists. A certain proportion of the initial cash
fund is passed on by the commissioners to the princes or
monasteries; partly to give them an immediate interest in
closing the transaction, partly to assist them in moving out
the Mongols without untoward incidents of resentment and
hostility. In this way some of the cash does find its way to
the individual tribesmen who have been dispossessed or
rather, to use a word more suited to Mongol conditions,

displaced.

The bulk of the fund raised by the first turnover in land
goes to finance the new administration during the period
that intervenes before regular revenue can be collected; for
the colonists or development agencies, in consideration of their
initial cash outlay, are allowed an interval, usually of three
years, in which to plow the virgin land, settle tenants and get
cultivation started. Thereafter regular land taxes are col-
lected, a percentage of which is paid to the Mongol prince.

It might be thought that after a lapse of time, especially
when the Mongols have withdrawn to a comparatively great
distance, the payment of such subsidies might be allowed to
default. There are three chief reasons why this does not hap-
pen. One is the necessity for keeping up the standard of con-
tract so long as any Mongol land remains to be acquired. One
is the absence of a popular form of government, under which
taxpayers have to be flattered and under which it would be
natural for elected representative demagogues to make a cam-
paign issue of the abolition of "unearned and undeserved
revenues paid to a distant and impotent princeling. One
and this is the most important is that a special bureau, a de-
partment of the general administrative system, normally han-
dles the prince's share of revenue. The officials of the bureau
have a vested interest in keeping up the collections and pay-

130 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

ments; the more so as, by immemorial usage, they make a
profit on all their transactions which is far more important
than their salaries. Thus it is common to find city properties
(as in Ch'angch'un and numbers of other places) which to
the present day pay revenue to Mongol princes, though the re-
gion has long lost any Mongol appearance, or even any
special "frontier" associations.

Nor is the profit on the manipulation of funds between
collection and payment to the Mongol prince or monastery
the only margin of interest in land administration and land
transactions. There are many such margins. One, which re-
curs repeatedly, is the margin of measurement. In the first
instance, the land is taken over in great stretches, "Mongol
fashion," from landmark to landmark. Thereafter it is dis-
tributed by measurement; and the first measurement, granted
to large buyers, is more generous than the second measure-
ment, when the extent of cultivation is checked over and
land taxation begins. In the course of years, occasional reas-
sessments are made, as the region is filled up and officials mul-
tiply. Reassessment commonly requires a tax on the verifica-
tion of documents, in addition to the fact that the unit of land
measurement is more and more strictly narrowed down. A
grant originally measured as one hundred mu may thus, in
time, come to be measured as several hundred mu; not to
mention the fact that the tax per unit may also gradually in-
crease. In fact, if only it were possible to tabulate the regional
ratios between nominal measurement and actual measure-
ment, and relate them to a common standard (a task of enor-
mous difficulty, owing to the play of custom and precedent
in each region) it would be both interesting and feasible to
estimate the age and stage of colonization of any region by
the actual size of the nominally standard unit of measurement.
Owing to the fact that the Mongols, even in retreat, hang

LAND AND POWER 131

together as a social body, they are not normally swamped by
the Chinese colonists, as the Gold have already been swamped
and as the Manchus have practically been swamped. Race
hostility thus tends to persist, although the Mongols progres-
sively diminish in numbers and power, and are confined to
rapidly shrinking ranges of pasture. Distinctions between
Mongol and Chinese administration also survive, which oc-
casionally amount to a kind of extraterritoriality. There is no
set code or formal agreement between Mongol and Chinese
authorities regulating the extent of this autonomy; in fact it
increases recognizably in proportion to the distance from the
nearest Chinese troops; but it is based to a certain extent on
precedents drawn from imperial edicts and rulings in specific
instances under the Manchu dynasty. Except in times of
tension and heightened feeling there is undoubtedly a tend-
ency for Mongols to get rid of Chinese undesirables simply
by expelling them from the region in which Mongol auton-
omy is exercised, and a similar, but less general tendency
for the Chinese to hand over Mongol delinquents to the
Mongol authorities; while cases of important dispute between
Mongols and Chinese are frequently settled by a kind of semi-
official arbitration between deputies of the Chinese and Mon-
gol administrations.

Curiously enough, it is probably Mongol autonomy,
especially in regions administered by rapacious under-
lings, the prince having departed to live on his revenues in
Peking or Mukden, that is chiefly responsible for the fact
that a minority of Mongols do remain behind when the
pastures are abandoned, and settle down among the Chinese
to "turn Chinese. 5 ' Mongols who take up agriculture rarely
feel any "aspiration" for the "higher standards" of the Chinese
culture; they commonly say that they have stayed on in the
sphere of Chinese advance because the exactions on behalf

132 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

of the Mongol prince have become unbearable. They look
back on the old tradition with melancholy and regret, and re-
gard their new way of life not as the dawn of opportunity,
but as the best choice open to a fallen generation in an evil
day. When land is first taken over for colonization, settlers
are in demand and taxation is light usually much lighter
than Mongol taxation. The Mongol can then take up a hold-
ing on excellent terms, or even, under the best-administered
modern settlement projects, on nominal terms or entirely free
of purchase charges. Even so it is common, and probably
general, to find that Mongols who have taken on the Chinese
way of life, even after a couple of generations, retain their
pride of race and do their best to retain their language, with
a vitality which, as has already been pointed out, contrasts
strongly with the lack of vitality in the Manchu language
though it is true that the oldest settled groups, like the Tumet,
both those north of Jehol and those of the Suiyiian-Kueihua
plain, after probably two centuries of settlement, have almost
or completely lost their language*

OFFICIALS AS EXPLOITERS

While these methods of allotting lands to colonists, thus
briefly and schematically described, may seem as simple as
any in the world, it is impossible to understand them in opera-
tion properly without some insight into the manner in which
officials work and authority is exercised in China. The ques-
tion of the part played by officials becomes of even greater
importance in the consideration of the development of the
land after allotment.

An adequate analysis of official methods in China is not
easy. For one thing, newly established, "model" administra-
tions interlock, in practice, with remnants of the old ad-

LAND AND POWER 133

ministrative order. The new influences affect, to a certain ex-
tent, even the old-model administrations; while the spirit and
point of view of the old officialdom also affect, very power-
fully, officials who are making a career in new-model ad-
ministrations. Nor is it easy to isolate characteristics which are
peculiar to Chinese society which belong to the culture as
distinguished from other cultures from characteristics which
are only relatively different which belong, that is, to the
age of the culture and the stage of development reached,
and which are therefore not to be distinguished from, but
to be compared with, the stage of development of other
cultures.

For instance, there is a decentralization, a diffusion of re-
sponsibility and a style in the handling of local affairs, allow-
ing an enormous scope for the indirect exercise of individual
policy, which is probably essentially Chinese. There is also
a style of family linkage, and an idea of the personal career
worked out through family connections, which may, perhaps,
be called Chinese. On the other hand the prevalence of
nepotism, involving the use of state information and public
machinery for private and family benefit, which is often called
a "Chinese" characteristic, is not by any means peculiar to
China. Such things are becoming more and more potent in
contemporary Western societies, and probably, by the time
any Western society has reached the same relative stage of
development as that of China, will be equally significant.
"Reform" and "progress" are terms too loosely used. Eco-
nomic conditions can, to a certain extent, be affected by so-
cial action; but the type of social action itself is, on the whole,
a matter of growth, age and decay. Even the ideals of "re-
form" and "progress" current in a given society are on the
whole predetermined less by the direct force of "environment"
than by the period of growth and age of the living society.

i 34 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

No society can fully control its future, because it cannot alter

its past. ,

Partly because of the lack of government funds to adminis-
ter "from above" the development of colonization lands, but
ultimately because of the Chinese type of decentralized official
administration, officials as individuals are inseparably asso-
ciated with colonizing exploitation. Thus, in default of budg-
eted and audited colonization funds, the colonization and the
officials administering it pay their own way from the begin-
ning. Officials appointed to distribute land allot themselves,
as a matter of course, large private holdings; and thereafter
they are concerned in the development of the region bodies
individuals and as officials. Moreover, because of the in-
stinctive feeling for diffused responsibility, official approval,
even official control is not enough for any enterprise with a
powerful effect on society. Officials must also be implicated as
individuals with a personal interest at stake. The power of
the official, and his methods in action, are not closely regu-
lated functions, but mutable indices. In the West, official
policy reveals a "scheme," a "system"; in China, what has to
be apprehended is the "feel" of the characteristically obscure
trend of development and center of gravity. Consequently
the actual functions and social value of the official cannot be
elucidated by reference to definite regulations, but must be
artistically felt out and manipulated.

In fact Western "systems" of government are assertive,
and informed both with theory and purpose. The common-
est cause of abuse and confusion in action is the over-
multiplication of principles, which conflict in practice. More-
over "corruption" often proceeds from deliberately engineered
social principles which, once launched as laws, favor par-
ticular classes, groups, or individuals. The tendency char-
acteristic of China appears to be a preference for "schemes"

LAND AND POWER 135

of authority which are largely neutral. They indicate a man-
ner of action, but they do not prescribe a course of action.
Therefore the things which actually happen and actually are
done, within the non-prescriptive framework, are mainly
determined by fluctuating individual adjustment and manipu-
lation.

The facts of "corruption" in America as discussed in books
by enthusiasts of "reform," are no more peculiar to America
than they are to China; but the style of working is different.
Again, in China, as in other countries where railways are
State enterprises, it is a frequent occurrence of fact that of-
ficials of the railway use their official knowledge for private
speculation in land; but, here again, the style of working is
different. The whole history of foreign railway enterprise in
China is, for instance, a struggle to insure to the investing
bondholders a kind of railway familiar to them; a self-
defined unit with functions that are specified in every respect
an ambition which is inevitably suspect to the national
feeling, which requires enterprises of which every function
is variable, in spite of definition, and in which Central Gov-
ernment interests, Provincial Government interests, local in-
terests and the personal interests of the officials representing
these groups of authorities, can all have room for manceuver.
According to this counter-feeling the bondholder, by infer-
ence, cannot rely on his "rights," but must work through his
alliances of interest. The condition aimed at is one in which
the identity and affiliations of the investor are more important
than the fact that he holds bonds a condition seen also in
the West, but for different reasons, arising from principles
and precepts which have been enforced by a given group in
its own interests.

Purely Chinese enterprises are operated as a matter of
course by linking the interests of the backers with the private

136 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

interest of officials. It would be quite absurd for an individual
to buy a large tract of land, bring in tenants, pay his taxes and
set out independently to become a land magnate of the pio-
neer colonizing frontier, with only a copy of the official regu-
lations as a guide to his relations with officials. The lonely
responsibility of such a career would be insupportable to the
individual, and the bald assertiveness of it would be abhor-
rent to society. Even if he could refer to regulations of the
most elaborate kind, he would feel uneasy about dealing with
the definition of an official; he would seek to find touch with,
and accommodate himself to, the officials. The office, as an
abstraction, is not negotiable; the officials, on the other hand,
as human beings, are variable and therefore understandable
indices to the tendencies current in the official world. To this
group, as it feels its way in action, the individual can make
functional but undefined adjustments, which satisfy his in-
stinct for keeping up a play of policy, which potentially may
last for an indefinite time into the future, without commit-
ting himself to a scheme of action assertively projected into
the future. Thus he can remain, so to speak, "in balance"
with his society, without having to strike a balance that
would commit him individually, and can remain one of a
nexus of individuals without isolated responsibilities.

Consequently, it is axiomatic that in any enterprise of large
scope, officials will be found as implicated participants, but
not as declared participants with fully limited functions. It
will never be possible to strike a balance between the office and
the official, the person as public official and the person as pri-
vate agent, the individual as manager of a large enterprise
and the individual as nephew of a general. That is why what
we call the "abuses" of nepotism, "squeeze," private par-
ticipation in public affairs, the use of state information for
private ends, and so forth, exhibit parallels of fact between

LAND AND POWER 137

East and West, but cannot be called parallels of style in ac-
tion, and why it is a gross misundertanding to call them all,
without further consideration, "defects" of the Chinese sys-
tem which have crept in through decay. They are defects in
the Western system, and they indicate the age of any given
society to the extent that the older the society, the more likely
they are to be both prevalent and, in a way of their own,
discreet.

In all Western societies, however, such "abuses" are both
felt and defined as defects. We recognize their existence, but
the public conscience, through repeated redefinition, works
incessantly (however hopelessly) to eliminate them. In the
Chinese society, the stigma of "abuse" does not automatically
attach. "Abuse" is not "abuse" in kind, but in degree. Too
much nepotism is considered reprehensible, and in due course
brings retribution; but it is characteristic that the degree is not
defined; reproof and correction work themselves out through
a gradual play of forces, without reference to a rigid scheme.
As for the "system" itself (so to call it) not only does it pro-
vide the most obvious, but the most necessary and practical
channels of action. If these channels were abruptly cut off,
all the processes of society would be paralyzed. There is an
effort to do away with them in modern times; it is this effort
which produces many of the discords of contemporary so-
ciety, and the chief motive power of the effort itself does not
come spontaneously from within the society, but from the
growing necessity of adaptation to alien standards it is one
of the reactions to foreign aggression.

These considerations are of the greater importance in that
colonization enterprises are preponderantly carried on^by
"big interests." The low standard of living of the colonists
themselves has apparently led to a general assumption that
the whole phenomenon of colonization is a primitive, spon-

i 3 8 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

taneous surge of migration. It is nothing of the sort, and the
style of operation of the "big interests" proves beyond a doubt
that as a social phenomenon the colonization of Manchuria
belongs to a highly elaborated, highly self-conscious, highly
artificial, very "late" stage of civilization. In southeastern
and central Manchuria, it is true, the natural pressure of in-
creasing population is responsible for a certain amount of
spontaneous enterprise in adjacent undeveloped lands, and
the same is true of the "oldest" parts of the Mongol "reser-
voir." Even here, however, all new industry and manufacture
is dominated by "big interests." In the open, typical "pioneer"
lands, not only such industry as exists, but the actual settle-
ment of the land is an affair of the "big interests."

The two most typical kinds of large enterprise are the land
company and the grain company; and these often interlock.
The bigger they are, the more certain it is that officials are im-
plicated in them. The norm of operation is as follows: either
an official has taken up an allotment of land and needs to have
it run for him, or a group interested in land exploitation need
to have official connections in order to work smoothly. A
combination is accordingly formed in which interest and in-
fluence have a capital value; the consequence being that the
cash returns on the capital actually invested cannot be me-
chanically distributed as calculable dividends, but must be
apportioned by mutual agreement according to all kinds of
incalculable categories. Even a manager drawing by agree-
ment a stipulated percentage of profits would never expect
to draw a sum exactly calculated on a fixed basis. Both real
basis and real sum may vary from year to year, and more-
over the exactness of the sum finally entered in the accounts
is shaded off either by delays in payment or by presents and
perquisites. Indeed, the value of the position itself is not an
exact quantity, for it depends in part on the facilities it af-

LAND AND POWER 139

fords for the occupant to use the advantages of his nominal
position for other activities.

It is not surprising that such alliances of capital invest-
ment and official interest are often reinforced by intermar-
riage; with the result that a marriage settlement often has
the effect of a business merger, or a tariff agreement. Thus the
activities, profits and liabilities of every participant become
subject to perpetual concession and manipulation. When
credit or fresh capital are needed, they are acquired by com-
parably unregulated methods. Each investment that comes
in has its own terms; it comes in on nominal terms that vary
with the status and ramifying relations of the investor, and
remains at work on actual terms that are subject to perpetual
rediscussion and readjustment.

In enterprises thus constituted, it is obvious that even when
a scheme of operation has been drawn up, it must be worded
as non-committally as possible, and be largely meaningless
in practice. No step that has to be decided on and carried out
falls within the prescribed sphere of an executive with defined
duties and responsibilities, but is on its merits a matter for
complicated delegation and combined execution. Thus all re-
sponsibility for performance is diffused; all are involved in a
drift of action stimulated by merging interests and accom-
modated by pliant adaptation to circumstances, with the re-
sult that personal initiative and assertiveness have to be dis-
counted as dubious qualities in business and society. On the
other hand negative responsibility, though equally undefined,
must always be met If anything happens, responsibility must
be adjudged; and normally it is adjudged, not by discriminat-
ing the person whose positive position, duties or actions point
him out as the responsible agent, but primarily by ascribing
it to the person who happened to be nearest in position when
the event occurred, and secondarily by making a scapegoat

i 4 o MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

of the person whose relative position makes it better for him
to bear it than anybody else.

In such involved operations the official serves as the link
giving an adaptability of relation between the nominal func-
tions of private enterprise and the nominal functions of gov-
erning authority. From the very beginning there is manipu-
lation of the measurement and allotment of the land. There is
a nominal division into "first," "second" and "thjrd"-class
land; but this is merely a concession to the "natural" factors,
which have thereafter to be brought into relation with the
"human" factors. The practical problems which have to be
met are:

On the fart of the land. Is it, while falling within the gen-
eral "first-class" category, good, extra good, and so on? What
are its possibilities in the way of development, transport,
bandits and so on, and is there anybody who is "on the inside"
with regard to any of these questions.

On the part of the purchaser. Who is he? What are his
other interests and activities? What are his relations with
other buyers, officials and those whose interests converge on
the land, whether in matters of development, transport, ban-
ditry or anything else?

All of these factors may be called potentials of policy, rather
than principles of action. They invade the future with no too
definite assertion, but rather provide a neutral standard of
manner in action, which may as well continue perpetually if
nothing happens; consequently, when anything does hap-
pen, it can be adjusted without loss of principle, so long as the
manner of doing things is not affected. As for practical func-
tion, all these factors must be taken into account when land
devolves from the government to the individual. The land
measure may be expanded or contracted and the price may be
shaded off by terms of cash, credit, installments and so on.

LAND AND POWER 141

Obviously such adjustments cannot be made unless officials
are involved as understanding participants; for, from the
very beginning, an official personally interested in a tract of
land can make arrangements for not collecting his own taxes
from himself.

With a central government that is weak in authority and
lacks funds for the impartial development of distant lands
by strict bureaucratic methods, there is often no alternative
to this expedient of localizing the capitalization and develop-
ment of each region, and allowing the officials of the ad-
ministration to become heavily interested in the projects they
administer. 1 If accidents of situation and auxiliary facilities
encourage the officials to develop the interests they have staked
out, the expedient often works well. On the other hand there
is often a tendency on the part of those interested to let the
investment wait until the facilities arrive. It is general, at least
in the modern period, to insert a clause in the regulations of
land grants to the eflect that if the investor does not begin
development within a specified time, the grant reverts to the
government. When, however, the officials themselves are
heavily interested, this clause becomes a dead letter. There
are huge tracts of apparent wilderness, especially in the north,
which actually have been allotted to private ownership under
land-grant projects, with title deeds dating back twenty or
thirty years, which have never been developed. Occasionally

1 While this type of unassertive central government and the unofficial expedient
of allowing inadequately paid officials to enrich themselves by lending the aid of
their official positions to personal and extra-official undertakings were inherent
in the Chinese system as taken over by the Manchus, the extra-official ac-
tivities of officials at least were further promoted by the Manchu law that
Manchus might not engage in trade. The Manchu official and his relatives had
therefore to engage in trade and other activities indirectly, through agents, in order
to invest their funds. Such proceedings could hardly be put on a contract basis,
because they were in the nature of things extra-legal. Obviously it was both effective
and discreet for the official to operate as an unseen angel in the affairs of business
concerns with which he had an understanding.

142 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

smaller holders have begun development and then been forced
out, because the rules of taxation were enforced against
them, but not against the "big interests" about them, with the
result that, failing to make a profit because of the lack of de-
velopment in the region as a whole, they have abandoned their
farms-wither selling them at a sacrifice to the "big interests"
or allowing their titles to lapse and be redistributed, thus also
passing, eventually, into the hands of the "big interests."

When a big exploiting enterprise begins to operate, linked
with the interests of officials and with its balances of capital,
management, executive responsibility and so forth delicately
but vaguely disposed about an obscure, undeterminable, mo-
bile center, all of its functions have to be adjusted in terms
of policy, in preference to principle. None of the terms of
tenantship, rental, taxation, "assisted colonization," loans,
provision of livestock, are rigid. When taxation is to be
levied, the governing standard is not a rigid assessment, but
the standard of "how much is enough ?" So long as the higher
authorities get "enough" the lower authorities are given scope
to make their own adjustments, and so on down to the actual
taxpayer. When rental is to be collected, if it is in kind, as is
most general, there is an agreed ratio for the division of
crops; but this has to be recurrently readjusted. How good is
the crop? What is the current relative value of different
crops ? What is the state of money, transport rates, loan quota-
tions ? If a tenant's crop has failed, has he really got nothing,
or a little something? What are his other resources? Who
are his relatives and friends ? Nor are the accommodations ar-
rived at by the bald calculation of a profit and loss account,
but the terms are shaded off by granting a somewhat smaller
measure, or by giving a new plow or by counting two donkeys
as a horse, or by not counting the number of young pigs, or by
helping a boy through school, or transferring a family to dif-

LAND AND POWER 143

f erent land, or urging that the value of services rendered in
making a marriage settlement be considered, or any one of a
countless number of expedients.

In marketing a crop, such a thing as a "straight deal," writ-
ten up, balanced off and closed out, must be very rare, if not
practically impossible. Transport rates, terms of delivery,
quality, are all subject to rediscussion at any moment. For-
eigners trading in China are only beginning to appreciate
this lack of clarity in Chinese business as they are being forced
gradually to meet Chinese terms in order to do any business
at all. The saying that "the word of a Chinese is as good as
his bond" dates back to the trading conditions of the eight-
eenth and nineteenth centuries, when amidst a maze of per-
plexities it was the only basis on which business could be done
between Chinese and foreigners; it was the minimum con-
dition dictated by foreigners. In Chinese business proper,
neither time, price nor quality is the essence of a contract;
bondsmen have to be associated with every contract in order
to diffuse responsibility during the almost inevitable nego-
tiations for adjustment and readjustment. Nor is the for-
eigner, demanding payment on the nail for goods delivered,
or delivery on the dot for goods contracted for and paid for
in advance, regarded as a sound, practical, hard-headed busi-
ness man, but as a stupid, violent, simple fellow who does not
understand the secrets of keeping a business running, but
must always close his deals with uncivilized plunging and

bounding.

In the marketing of agricultural produce there is a mixture
of tenant's transport, landlord's transport, and outside pro-
fessional transport; and the initial cart transport must be
carefully adjusted to rail transport. There are questions of
taxation in transit, and the relations of those engaged in trans-
port to those engaged in tax collection. For this reason trans-

144 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

port men of all kinds avoid working off a beaten route which
they have made their own; to encounter tax officials with
whom they have no acquaintance is as bad as encountering
robbers. 2 Moreover, taxation being farmed out to concession-
aires, there is a fluctuating margin between the receipts esti-
mated and the amount the traffic can bear; not to mention
the margin between the amount the concessionaire has agreed
by contract to pay the authorities above him, and the amount
he may be called on to pay, or the amount that he thinks ought
to be enough for him to pay. Finally, woven through many
types of commercial activity, there are the interests of officials
associated with land companies, with grain companies, with
transport companies, and so on.

The introduction of new types of activity, like railways,
alien to the traditional complex, immediately forces an im-
portant issue; there is a tendency for the kind of strict control
and schematic planning associated with railways to crys-
tallize the loose organization of the older activities into closely
defined units, in order to facilitate the work of the railway.
This is one of the effects of the impact of Western aggression.
There is also an opposite tendency for the rigid, self-inclusive
organization originally associated with the railway to break up
into the vague associations which characterize the economic
structure of the region in which it operates; this is the effect
of the reaction of the traditional society, endeavoring not to
be dominated by the alien method, but to adapt the alien
utility to its own methods. Generally speaking, the more ob-
viously a railway is the tool of "Western aggression," the
more Western it remains. Unless it was financed by a foreign
loan, with a certain amount of foreign control over accounts

2 For a tax collector, conversely, the question "Whose goods are you carrying?"
is almost as important sometimes more important than the question "What
goods are you carrying?"

LAND AND POWER 145

to guarantee the service of the loan, there is an almost over-
whelming tendency for the actual functions of the railway to
diverge from its planned functions; and the most obvious
sign of this is the margin between the freight carried and the
freight charges collected. Thus it is characteristic that a re-
gion of new colonization may be booming, with rising land
values, an expanding outward trade in grain and a com-
pensating inward trade in general merchandise; and yet be
served by a railway which is badly in arrears in payments on
interest and capital The railway serves the community, in
a manner of speaking, very efficiently; all benefit by it; but
the benefits, instead of being made manifest in a definable and
accountable sum marked "railway profits," are dispensed
through the community by a multitude of indirect and in-
visible channels. All railways run through the spheres of
operation of a number of officials; and as all railways are
State railways, there is a perpetual flux of adjustment between
central authority and regional authority, and between the of-
ficials who are primarily interested in the railway and those
whose local interests impinge on the railway.

It is easier to understand the structure of a region that is be-
ing developed by rapid colonization than to summarize it.
The briefest summary possible is to say that the land com-
missioner takes up good holdings for himself in the land he
distributes, and delegates his interest in development to a
land company. The land company delegates a part of its in-
terest to a grain company. The grain company delegates a
part of its interest to a distillery (for grain that is too far from
a market can be turned to profit by distilling alcohol on the
spot and transporting the alcohol) ; and another part of its
interest to a transport company. Each sphere of operation
pays for itself, but each depends on intimate understanding
with all the others. The land company turns over part of its

i 4 6 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

profit to the official, who needs it because failing a strict
bureaucratic organization and a career based on a definite
schedule he must pay most of his own salary and all of his
own pension. The grain company turns over part of its
profit to the land company; the distillery and the transport
company turn over part of their profits to the parent grain
company. Finally, at the base of the whole structure, the
tenant peasant, who may hold his land either from the official,
the land company, the grain company or the distillery, turns
over part of his crop to his landlord, and keeps the rest for
himself. What he does not need for food he turns in to the
grain company, partly for money but mostly for utensils.
The peasant has only a minimum hold on the money, the cash,
which in the highly developed civilization of China, as in
that of the West, is the one universally and rapidly negotiable
agent of power. The peasant therefore has only a minimum
scope of ambition and enterprise. It is almost impossible for
him to escape bondage to the land he tills and the grain^he
harvests, except by cutting loose from the land and turning
to the towns and cities. It is almost impossible for him to
win through money an economic independence in the use of
land; for money values are determined by paper currencies
which, with the banks that issue them, are overwhelmingly
dominated by the private interests of various officials.

Under modern conditions in the settlement of new land, the
independent small holder is inevitably swamped by tenant
fanners whose entire economic life is dominated by the big
interests. It might appear that the great supply of land,
matched by a great supply of colonists impelled to migrate
from China by famine conditions, would stimulate a free-
for-all colonization favoring individual enterprise. Actually,
because the big interests have a priority of choice in taking up
land, and can recruit tenants who, being economically des-

LAND AND POWER 147

perate, are willing to accept almost any terms, the majority
of the new land is settled by people who do not go where they
want, but are put where they are wanted. The new colonists
arriving by the ever-expanding new railways, transported
either free of charge or at special minimum rates, and either
taking up land at a minimum capital outlay or land on which
they may begin work without any capital at all, and with
housing, plows and livestock provided by the landlord, have
a minimum economic initiative. The new land company and
the new grain company have their representatives in the new
chamber of commerce, and their interests interlock with the
interests which direct railway policy. Therefore they are able
to plan in advance the number of new tenants they can settle
in a given season, and by representations in the right quarter
to secure the required supply at a minimum cost. In other
words the allotment of land and the transport and settlement
of colonists are not directed by impersonal agencies; nor are
impartially administered state funds available for financing
settlers without capital. On the contrary, the distribution's
the land itself is manipulated largely in favor of the interests
of people in privileged positions, and these interests develop
into "big interests" of a thoroughly sophisticated type, which
thereafter interpenetrate and influence the whole mechanism
of settlement and development. ^^

It is in consequence misleading even to attempt totfiscuss
colonization in terms of bureaucratically administered, self-
contained "schemes," isolated region by region. The best that
can be done is to attempt to interpret the manner of working
of an intricately patterned drift of personal and public action.
One of the most characteristic phenomena of the merging of
the private person and the official is the fact that invariably
the official is dealt with as individual rather than as func-
tionary. Therefore every time an official is promoted or trans-

148 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

ferred, a ripple of adjustment spreads over the former sphere
of his activity, followed by a corresponding ripple as his suc-
cessor works into place. For this reason in every province,
every county, every tax-office, every military district and in-
numerable industrial, commercial and agricultural enter-
prises, there can be detected not only the growing influence
of new interests, but the waning influence of old "connec-
tions. 59 Because of the diffusion of his interests, the in-
dividual cannot wind them up, write out a profit and loss
account, realize in cash and boldly invest his capital else-
where. He cannot abruptly form new connections any more
than he can abruptly sever old ones. He must make countless
exchanges, concessions, delegations of interest; and while his
diminishing influence is being sloughed off in one group and
region, he is fostering its introduction and tentative growth
elsewhere.

CHAPTER VII

EXPLOITATION AND WESTERNIZATION

WESTERNIZATION AND THE STRUGGLE
AGAINST THE WEST

HOWEVER important the "style" of operation in land settle-
ment and agricultural development, it remains evident that
there are strong parallels between modern Chinese coloniza-
tion and colonization under a Western government The
results achieved above all, the importance of large corporate
activities which can bring pressure to bear on the activities
of government are in many ways more obvious than the man-
ner of operation. In other words it appears to be more sig-
nificant that the civilization of China is mature and "late,"
and that Western civilization is beginning to show the same
phenomena of age, than that the styles of the two civilizations
are different. Perhaps the most obvious distinction that ap-
pears is that in the West "big interests" tend to control in-
dividuals in official positions, in order to increase their scope
of operation, while in Manchuria officials tend to increase their
influence and power by taking a hand in and controlling the
enterprises of "big interests"; so that under one system the
public pays a toll to private enterprise, while under the other
the officials take a toll from the public through the manipula-
tion of private enterprise.

When, however, we consider industry and manufacture,
finance on a large scale and all activities that require the use
of machinery in short, all activities in which it is necessary
to cope with Western standards, Western competition and

149

i 5 o MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

Western pressure the cleavage between East and West be-
comes more obvious. The cleavage is not one which the
Western mind readily appreciates. We are too much accus-
tomed to think of Western civilization as a force in itself,
which spreads over the world with the imperative converting
effect of a new religion, imposing a unity of creed and social
life. We are therefore impatient of differences in attitude to-
ward our style of civilization. We are prone to assume that
a bank is a bank, a factory a factory, a railway a railway and
a mine a mine, all the world over; that there may be differ-
ences in nationality but none in the essential structure of
civilization, wherever the civilization of which these are the
visible portents has been established. Yet the truth of the mat-
ter is that differences of culture and the feeling of what life
and civilization ought to be do continue potent in operation.
In Northeastern Asia may be seen the phenomena of three
great processes in the life, death and transformation of civili-
zations. Japan has taken to itself the whole of Western civil-
ization and attempted to master it, and has become, with
differences of national culture and tradition, but not of essen-
tial economy and civilization, as nearly as possible a Western
nation. Russia, which was never a Western nation of the
genuine Western tradition, is now apparently succeeding in
taking over the powers of the Western civilization and trans-
forming them, and at the same time the Russian nation, with
results which point to the emergence of a new style of civili-
zation, with social, economic and intellectual values peculiar
to itself. In China, the struggle has not yet swung finally
in one direction or the other. There is no overwhelming na-
tional ambition to discipline the nation in Western modes
and make the Western civilization its own, as in Japan. Nor
is there any overwhelming ambition to adopt the Russian
method, that of disintegrating both old and new, the in-
digenous and the alien, in order to create, by inspiration from

EXPLOITATION AND WESTERNIZATION 151

within, something fresh and unheard of in the world. The
majority of the vigor available in the nation appears to be
working toward a stalemate decision; namely, a maximum
objective use of the new means available, with a minimum
adoption of new subjective values.

One of the pronounced characteristics of the new Russian
civilization is the decided assertion of national taste in the
choice of borrowings from the Western civilization, par-
ticularly the Western industrialism. In spite of what appear
to be failures abortive experiments and uncompleted pro-
gramsthe Russians on the whole would seem to know both
what they want from the West and how they intend to use
it. In such a momentous creative experiment as the Russian
revolution, the f ailure to carry out a few details of the program
is immaterial, in face of the lively assertion of likes and dis-
likes which testifies to a living national inspiration at work.
It is as though the Russians always know inwardly what they
want, even though they cannot always define and execute
completely what they want.

Herein lies the great difference between modernization in
Russia and Westernization in Japan. The Russians are highly
critical and selective, and do not hesitate to remodel what
they are not prepared to take over in its European-American
form. The Japanese, carried away by the desire to be Western,
have always tended to swallow everything whole. Selection
has gone chiefly by countries the navy being modeled on
that of one country, the army on that of another, and so on.
Hence the charge of imitation without imagination that is al-
most a catchword in criticism of Japan. There is, however,
evidence in history that the Japanese have a power of di-
gestion equal to their boa-constrictor method of acquisition.
The Chinese civilization brought over to Japan a thousand
years and more ago, and reinforced at intervals later, became
in time a genuine Japanese growth, with a national cast in

I 5 2 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

literature, art, religion and society, and a vitality which in
many respects has outlasted that of China itself. There have
already been reactions in Japan against indiscriminate West-
ernization, and the final achievement of a new Japan, de-
veloped out of the present nation with its characteristics of
over-Westernization in some respects and incomplete West-
ernization in others, depends chiefly on the ability of Japan
to stand the economic strain. When the Western culture, al-
ready adopted, has been finally assimilated, the Western
origins of the new Japanese culture will be as obvious as the
Chinese origins of the older culture; but, like the older cul-
ture, it will have an unmistakable Japanese cast and a life of
its own.

In contrast with this sense of certitude and inspiration, one
of the major phenomena produced by the impact of the West
on China appears to be a feeling of doubt and indecision. THe
crucial question "What do we want?" which was the touch-
stone of Westernization in Japan, and is, though differently
applied, the touchstone of the creation of a new Russia, is re-
placed by the question "What do we have to have ?" The New
China is not at all impressed with any inward, moral or
spiritual superiority inherent in the West. There is none of
that urgent desire to assume the standards of the West, to
measure up to the standards of the West and to pass proudly
as "first class" by the standards of the West which made the
Westernization of Japan as passionate as a crusade although
Westerners commonly enough, with gross lack of apprecia-
tion, deplore that crusade as nothing but a drab process de-
structive of a picturesque old culture. 1

Nor is there any of that instinctive feeling for what is to be

1 It is true that China also passionately desires to be recognized as a "first-class**
nation with a "first-class" culture; but the essence of the Chinese demand is that
the Western standard ought to be modified to admit China, without the antecedent
remodeling o China to suit the Western standard.

EXPLOITATION AND WESTERNIZATION 153

chosen and what rejected, and how that which is chosen is
to be used, which characterizes the Russia of to-day, and which
often confounds and disgusts Western enthusiasts, reformers
and idealists who think they know what Russia ought to
want. The arrival of Perry's squadron had, in Japan, the effect
of the revelation of a new dispensation. The war in Europe,
which destroyed the superficial strata of Westernism in Rus-
sia, released the dormant energy of the autochthonous Rus-
sian inspiration. In China, the different assaults of Western
nations led only to defensive measures and a conviction of
the essential savagery of Western civilization; and the war
in Europe, and its sequelae, put an end to any hope that China
might accept the civilization of the West as admirable in
itself, and gave strength to the instinct that China ought to
bide her time, in the hope eventually of sloughing off the
West and its barbarisms. Hence a strong intellectual tend-
ency, in the China of to-day, to accord to considerations of
the possible decay and collapse of Western civilization an
importance at least equal to considerations of the desirability
of Westernizing China.

There is, indeed, in the processes of Westernization in
China, a play of fashion which often appears irresponsible
to Westerners, because random and unconvinced. Western
standards, far from being considered admirable in themselves,
are all suspect and feared as "soulless," because inimical to
the spirit of China. Accordingly there appears to be, very
often, in the course of adaptation to Western standards, a
difficulty in distinguishing between the mechanics of any
given process and the spirit that informs the process. In
this way attempts are often made to take over a method,
without adopting the spirit of the society in which the method
was originally developed, and of which it was the natural
fruit Perhaps the most striking illustration of this type of

i 5 4 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

contradiction is to be found in the adoption on a large scale
of Western armaments, with the minimum adoption of the
Western style in warfare. In the same way, when there^is
a question of handing over to Chinese control any enterprise
originally developed by foreigners, the least of the difficulties
is that of training a technical staff. The true crisis comes when,
with the full assertion of Chinese control, a standard of enter-
prise and responsible direction based on adaptation is sub-
stituted for one based on assertion.

The pronounced tendency toward State monopolies and
State activities of different kinds is a part of the feeling of
uncertainty in face of the alien spirit which lingers about all
kinds of alien activities. This tendency is the stronger for
being based on a preexistent attitude toward mines, forests
and all such natural wealth as men do not create but find:
it accounts for an effort to treat many Westernisms, particu-
larly those which are bound up with machinery and indus-
trialism, as if they were, by analogy, not phenomena that men
choose, invent or construct in the pursuit of individual am-
bition and self-fulfillment, but phenomena which men en-
counter, phenomena which they find it necessary to deal
with as if they were complete in themselves.

It is therefore not surprising that the greatest danger to
the independent strength and freedom of initiative of a na-
tion like China (or Turkey) which is making an effort to
adapt itself to the standards of the West is that it thereby
admits, at least by implication, the superior authority of the
West; with the result that, by the time it has mastered West-
ernization as a thing complete in itself, the West proper,
whose Westernism is a living force informed with growth
and activity, has progressed spontaneously to a further point
with the result that the nation striving for adaptation, hav-
ing once admitted the authority of the alien standard, finds

EXPLOITATION AND WESTERNIZATION 155

itself still chronologically in arrears and accordingly restricted
in the faculty of initiative. Even in a nation like Japan, where
the process of Westernizing was less an adaptation than a
transformation, a genuine phenomenon of rebirth, the effects
of this chronological handicap can very definitely be traced.

In China, the old conception of state rights of possession
in respect of natural wealth ("wealth in itself," like gold) is
increasingly being extended to all kinds of activities ("wealth
created by work") notably rail transport, and many industrial
and exploitational enterprises, and even the distribution of
commodities. There is, for instance, a strong and recurrent
tendency to assert regional-monopoly control of trade in oil
products, tobacco and matches all of which are dominated
by foreign interests. The type of state monopoly that works
out in practice is different both from the Russian concep-
tion, which aims at doing better than individual enterprise,
and the normal Western type of state control which aims as
a rule at prevention of abuse by private enterprise; in the
Chinese type, apart altogether from the perennial question
of revenue, which often superficially appears to be the main
question, die problem of the relation between the State and
the individual is secondary to the profound problem of safe-
guarding Chinese standards, during the period of adaptation,
from coming too far under the authority of Western stand-
ards. Maneuvers of defense are constantly in evidence.

Although Russian state enterprises differ in inspiration
from those of typically Western nations, yet in Russia and
the West alike the type of action is the use of state machinery
to express the policy, the will, of individuals who have mas-
tered the state and use it for the assertion of their own ideas
of what should be done and how it should be done. The
State is the spear of the individual. At the core of the system
the individual is always to be found; the system itself is one of

156 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

pyramided individual wills and responsibilities. The state
machinery in China, although fitfully and opportunistically
exploited by the individual, functions above all as a shield for
the individual. The state and its organizations, in the modern
phase, play a part of vital importance in deadening the im-
pact on society of aggressive Western activity; they diffuse
responsibility where the Western instinct focuses it. At the
core of the system the group can always be found; the in-
dividual is hard to define. The individual shelters within and
behind the group, in order to work out his own position;
though this does not impair the importance of the individual,
whose personality has always been of high importance in
China, and never more than at the present time.

This can be felt in all negotiations with the State, not only
international but domestic. The individual is responsible
when responsibility for what has happened can be pinned on
him; but when responsibility must be assumed in advance for
what is going to be done, for what is willed and projected, it is
diffused as widely as possible over the group. In the West,
both in domestic crises within the State and in international
negotiations, the individual with convictions steps out to make
a claim for leadership; the strongest claim he can make for
himself is the number and loyalty of the group that follow
him; he works by persuading the group to follow his lead.
In China, when something must be decided, the individual
works from behind the group, pushing it before him to the
best of his ability. The strongest case he can make for himself
is that he has followed the most important group.

It is not for nothing that, in the West, all important treaties,
of the kind that mark epochs, turning points in history, are
associated naturally, and as it were unthinkingly, with the
names of great men who dominated the decisions and terms of
the treaties. There is never any doubt about the figurehead and

EXPLOITATION AND WESTERNIZATION 157

the representative, the spokesman. In treaties between China
and Western nations, owing largely to the series of treaties
brought about by Western insistence, there has always been
a disconcerting vagueness about the relation of the signatories
of China to the feeling of the Chinese nation. The compara-
tive unimportance of the individual name has persisted re-
markably even into the modern phase where China is ma-
nceuvering energetically to hold the initiative in foreign
treaties. Able and brilliant as is the Foreign Minister who has
conducted, under foreign eyes, the foreign policy of the
Nationalist Government, it cannot be doubted that in Chinese
eyes the treaties he has signed are not his treaties but the
treaties of the Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party. Probably
the man who was most conspicuously a leader and an in-
dividualist in Chinese negotiations with a foreign power was
Eugene Chen, the man who conducted and dominated the
negotiations for the rendition of the British Concession at
Hankow and he was an overseas Chinese, educated abroad,
who first came to China as a man grown, rose to high power
under the influence of a Russian military advisor, and shortly
after his most brilliant achievements was eliminated from
Chinese political life and forced into exile. 2 Much of the bit-
terness in China over past foreign treaties arises from the fact
that the West habitually enforced the Western interpretation
of treaties, the terms of which carried neither intellectual nor
instinctive conviction to the China with which they were con-
cluded. In the same way much of the friction between China
and Western nations during the revolutionary period has
been due to the stubborn Western persistence in trying to find
a "strong man" with whom to deal a type of "strong man"
abhorrent to Chinese statesmanship; not exactly the Yuan
Shih-k'ai type, but the type that the Powers tried to prod

2 He returned again in 1931 to join the anti-Nanking Canton faction.

i 5 8 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

Yuan Shih-k'ai into becoming ignoring the fact that the
nearer a Chinese statesman approaches to this type, the nearer
he is to downfall through being rejected and disowned by
the group-feeling of the nation.

In Manchuria, easily accessible regions of great geographical
extent lie open to development by either new methods or old.
It is therefore of extraordinary interest to consider the inter-
action of the groups and the individual, and the old Chinese
tradition proper, the regional tradition of the "reservoir" and
the pressure from without of a civilization of totally different
style. To begin with, modern banking operations, modeled
on Western lines, tend very strongly to become official mo-
nopoliesespecially provincial monopolies. There is probably
not a provincial bank in China that is not closely linked with
the personal credit of the members of the provincial govern-
ing group. The tendency is to identify personalities of the gov-
erning group with the impersonal entity, "the province," and
also to identify the financial prosperity of the province with
the personal careers of the governor and his group of sup-
porters. It is a tribute to the national skill in negotiation that
when a provincial administration falls, the currency and credit
of the province do not necessarily collapse altogether. In fact
the common procedure, when a governor is removed, whether
by death, defeat or transfer, is not to repudiate the provincial
currency but to discount it. The new controlling interests
agree, in effect, to redeem a proportion of the currency and to
confirm a proportion of the province's credit. This form of
compromise represents a personal investment by the new
official in the region he has undertaken to govern, and the
process of identifying the personal interests of the official
with the public interests of die sphere of office being thus re-
peated, a continuity of routine and procedure is assured.
Thereafter, if the official is of the type that develops and ex-

EXPLOITATION AND WESTERNIZATION 159

ploits his interests as investments, the value of the provincial
currency begins to improve ; but if he is of the plundering type,
it remains depreciated.

The great value of the system is that, during a period of
transition such as that of modern China, the political affilia-
tions of an official, and the extent to which he is involved in
civil wars, do not prevent all the economic interests within
the region he governs from supporting him, so long as he
endeavors to promote economic development. The great dis-
advantage, in a region like Manchuria where the general eco-
nomic condition is of necessity sympathetic to the development
of great untouched lands, is that colonization cannot be de-
veloped uniformly under an impartial administration, but
must proceed locally and to a certain extent spasmodically,
being always under the influence of a great number of in-
dividual careers. Moreover, though an official may be just
toward individuals and encourage every kind of immediate
development, he is hardly able to take a long view of the de-
velopment of natural resources, being inevitably inclined to
forms of exploitation which offer the greatest immediate
profit, regardless of waste and rapid exhaustion.

Obviously, in the financing of colonization projects, provin-
cial banks are of the greatest importance. Their operations
interpenetrate all land development, the grain trade and the
foundation of new industries ; and there is an obvious tendency
for those who exercise authority to take as much as possible
of their own profit in cash, and to pass on to the public as much
as possible of its share in the form of credit largely in the
form of paper currency. Thus it frequently happens in a new
center of the grain trade, for instance, that the men who direct
the local banks private banks as well as the provincial bank,
for the larger a private bank the more likely it is to be identi-
fied with the interests of some official exploit their bank posi-

160 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

tions in order to foster their own activities in the grain trade,
thus throwing a certain burden on the grain trade as a whole.
Nor is this to be condemned as malpractice ; the imputation of
malpractice only attaches if it goes too far. If the general
development of the region begins to be impeded by ^ such
preferred interests, the converging pressure of the majority
interest eventually results in a change of bank directors;
whereupon the process is renewed on a more reasonable scale.
Under such a system it is evident that in negotiating for
a mortgage on land, for instance, the economic soundness of
the transaction itself must be secondary to the question of the
identity of the owner of the land, the identity of the bank
director, and their relation to each other and to various offi-
cials. Thus different landowners, grain companies, flour
mills, promoters of new industries and so on not only secure
different terms according to their personal affiliations, but
the original terms are, by tacit recognition, subject to revision,
in spite of written terms, as the result of changes in the bank,
or changes in the personnel (not necessarily connected with
commercial profit or loss) of the enterprise which the bank
is financing. By corollary, the importance of any given per-
son in any given corporate enterprise is likely to be determined
by the question "Who is he?" in preference to the question
"What can he do?" Even the amount of actual cash invest-
ment which he represents may well be less important than
his political and family associations. The advantages of the
system have been pointed out, particularly the tendency to
make those participating in government sensitive to the eco-
nomic life of the community: but its weakness (from the
Western point of view) must again be pointed out; partic-
ularly the phenomenon, obvious everywhere in Manchuria,
of enterprises of industry and exploitation dominated by men
who, far from having "grown up with the business," are lim-

EXPLOITATION AND WESTERNIZATION 161

ited in the extent of their interests by the degree of official
power held by relatives and friends, and in the duration of
their interests by the tenure of office held by those same rel-
atives and friends. This accounts for a comparative paucity
of large-scale undertakings developed slowly over a long pe-
riod of years and the existence of numbers of enterprises
which, however large in scale, are operated fitfully, governed
by circumstances of opportunity, and characterized by phe-
nomena of heavy investment risk, quick turnover and large
profits when successful.

Associated with this type of enterprise is the phenomenon
of industries and activities of all kinds which "run down";
the more mechanical and technical the undertaking, the more
likely being the phenomenon of running down. Flour mills,
for instance, very commonly pay for their capital cost by the
end of the second year; sometimes in one year. Thereafter,
every cent of intake is regarded as profit, and there is a pro-
nounced reluctance to reinvest any serious proportion of the
profits in maintenance and adequate care of the machinery.
There is no prevalent feeling that the directors of such a mill
are under any moral obligation to hand over the mill in per-
fect running order to their hypothetical successors; and in-
deed the average director is more likely to advise investing
profits in a totally new mill than to urge the reinvestment of
a smaller sum in keeping up and looking after the original
mill. The fact that many prosperous regions are conspicuous
for factories and other enterprises that have been "sucked
dry" and abandoned is not, in Manchuria, an anomaly. Man-
churia, indeed, owes its continued and comparatively rapid
increase of prosperity to two circumstances which do not de-
pend on the national style of culture and political economy
at all. One of these is the fact that no prolonged, and only
one serious campaign in any of the civil wars in which Man-

i62 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

churia has been concerned since the foundation of the Re-
public has been fought out on Manchurian territory. The
other is the fact that political and factional continuity has been
unbroken, allowing a much greater continuity in social and
economic development than has been possible in most parts
of China proper. These factors are probably at least as im-
portant as the great reserves of surplus land and untouched
resources in Manchuria; for other Chinese frontier regions,
analogous to Manchuria in natural wealth and social struc-
ture have not enjoyed an analogous prosperity, but have suf-
fered the same cultural, social and economic disintegration
that characterizes the main regions of contemporary China.

Given the circumstances which have made for prosperity
in Manchuria, the indigenous economic methods work hap-
pily enough, geared as they are to the structure of society.
They are readily adjusted to margins of risk, scales of profit
and terms of family organization which are all matters of com-
mon understanding. It is when Western pressure appears, in
the form of foreign investment through railway loans, for
example, or through construction undertaken or machinery
supplied on credit that friction becomes inevitable. West-
ern interests are not so adjusted, financially, that they can
easily compromise on the original terms of a contract, or pur-
sue their enterprises by fits and starts. Consequently, in pe-
riods of political and financial readjustment, when Chinese
interests philosophically compromise in the traditional man-
ner, or resign themselves to a period of coma, foreign interests
try to hold out for their "rights" to the limit of their ability
and, in so doing, make it impossible to escape the imputa-
tion of foreign arrogance and ruthless exploitation.

Again, it is increasingly difficult to sell foreign imports, es-
pecially machinery, on a large scale and on credit, without
first inflating the price in order to allow commissions to the

EXPLOITATION AND WESTERNIZATION 163

middlemen without whom the business could not be done.
In the case of official or semi-official business, only too often,
a large part of these commissions is taken by men who do not
actively further the enterprise, but who are entitled to a per-
centage simply as their price for not obstructing the deal. The
degree of inflation, in turn, increases in proportion to the
wealth and credit of the buyer, in accordance with the prin-
ciple that the man who has more money ought to pay more
than the man with less money would pay for the same article
this being yet another difference in point of view between
the East and the West, where normally the buyer with good
credit can purchase more cheaply than the buyer with limited
credit. Since this type of inflation is a concession to Chinese
methods, it is easy to accuse foreign entrepreneurs of col-
lecting profits on the Chinese scale, while taking advantage of
foreign "special privileges" to insure a Western standard of
protection from risk, thus evading the Chinese remedy of
readjustment of contracts and terms of payment. With the
decrease of actual foreign control in China, it is not surpris-
ing that there is not only a tendency to default on payments
to foreign enterprises, but to justify the defalcation as a form
of resistance to outrageous exploitation.

One of the expedients now being tried as a remedy for the
bad condition of credit in China is the use of guaranteed funds
for enterprises of Westernization. The recent allotment of
portions of the remitted British Boxer Indemnity for railway
construction and other enterprises is an example, and an ex-
ample of the highest interest. For, while the British manufac-
turers who are thus guaranteed payment for the materials they
supply can hardly be accused of "imperialistic" designs, it is
impossible to deny that the arrangement necessarily increases
the interest and responsibility of an alien government in the
internal affairs of China. Nor can it be doubted that leaders

164 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

of the Chinese Government would avoid the arrangement if
any other were open to them. Indeed the whole experiment,
while intended and described as a gesture of amity, cannot
but be considered as an important instance of that change
in the form of Western pressure on China to which I have
already referred.

The tendency, on the one hand, to regard Western products
and methods either as necessary for China (and chiefly "nec-
essary" in the sense not of what is wanted but of what has to
be had) or merely as profitable to the individual Chinese who
are concerned with them, but on the other hand to manipulate
foreign activities concerned in the Westernization of China
as if they were dangerous and inherently hostile, is given a
special emphasis by the fact that officials are so generally in-
terposed between the foreign activity and the Chinese public
which it affects. Not only direct attempts to introduce West-
ern capital, but many kinds of commercial and industrial
activity, especially those leading to the installation and in-
creased use of machinery, and the employment of foreign tech-
nical supervisors, come in touch at once either with official
bodies or with the private interests of officials. Thus not only
the State, but officials as a class are assigned an important part
in distributing through society the impact of the West on the
old order. The larger the enterprise, the more likely it is
that officials who are developing their private interests as well
as those of the State will interpose the organization of the
State between themselves and tie actual enterprise, in order
to diffuse and minimize their personal responsibility. This,
in turn, not only reinforces the trend toward State monopolies
and semi-official corporations, but casts about every impor-
tant activity of Westernization an atmosphere of State con-
cern, of the public interest and of international affairs. It is
hardly surprising that, in the popular estimation, any impor-

EXPLOITATION AND WESTERNIZATION 165

tant activity in which any foreign interest can be detected is
regarded as a form of contest, in which with varying fortune
either the officials succeed in exploiting the foreigners, or the
foreigner succeeds in exploiting China: thus relegating to a
secondary importance the question of the desirability of as-
similating, subjectively, Western technique and the Western
point of view; and perpetuating the popular feeling of an
immanent hostility between the Chinese way of doing things
and the foreign way of doing things.

THE TECHNICIAN MASTER OR SERVANT?

The function of the machine itself, as an instrument
through which the people of a particular society express the
aims of their culture, is worth a special study. There is an
obvious tendency, in the West, to elevate the machine and its
technicians to a dominant position in society, and an increas-
ing tendency to regard specialized mastery of some one tech-
nique as the highest qualification for an important position in
society at large; and a tendency to subordinate the living or-
ganisms of society and culture to the dead, inorganic structure
of machines, industries and other creations of technique. The
term "engineer" is a powerful catchword in government and
many kinds of social administration, and it is a characteristic
Americanism of the mind, only to be expected in the most
advanced and mechanized state of the West, that multiply-
ing millions of Westerners undoubtedly accept, without any
sense of the ridiculous, formulae of this general category,
"Henry Ford's opinions on history must be of first-class im-
portance, because look at the Ford car." The specialist, the
technician, is the true dictator of culture and society, and far
more important than the man who has great wealth only.
In China, on the other hand, in spite of the vital importance

i66 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

to the nation and its culture of all questions bearing on the ac-
ceptance or rejection of Western technique an d its accompany-
ing mentality, the technician has not progressed beyond a
comparatively servile status. In view of the importance of
"big interests" as a gear for connecting the machinery of au-
thority with the enterprise of personal interests, which points
obviously to an advanced and sophisticated civilization, it is
extremely significant that the "big men" of the "big interests"
are normally not the technicians. Given a social and cultural
order as highly developed as that of China, the crucial factor
in the modification of the economic order is the factor already
emphasized, of the strong objective operation of Western
technical appliances, associated with a poor subjective assim-
ilation of Western technique. Thus we have the paradox
that the recent rapid progress of Chinese colonization in Man-
churia is directly proportionate to the spread of Western meth-
ods of transport and exploitation; while these activities them-
selves continue to be generally valued only as sources of
profit, not as providing opportunities for admirable careers.
The normal ambition, in respect of such activities of alien
type, is to be able to control them, in preference to being able
to do them. Socially, it is more admirable to be a mine owner
or mine-concessionaire than a mining engineer. This throws
into relief once more the fact that very few technicians of
Western training are to be found in positions of control.
Trained railwaymen do their best to administer railways un-
der the control of men who have no understanding of, and still
worse, no feeling for the technical needs and professional
standards of railway administration. In spite of numbers of
men available who have thoroughly mastered different tech-
niques of industry, manufacture and all kinds of mechanical
exploitation, only a very few can be found working with a
free hand in positions of real control. Normally, they remain

EXPLOITATION AND WESTERNIZATION 167

subordinate to men and interests whose whole instinct is to
avoid fusing West and East organically; who endeavor to
take what profit they can out of Western machines, but are
unwilling to subordinate their own way of doing things to
the demands of the Western technique that goes with ma-
chinery. The machine is welcome so long as it is obedient
to orders; but it is not regarded as it was in Japan as the
symbol of an epoch, a turning point, and the revelation of a
new way of life.

The machine was a natural product of the Western mind,
whose latent mechanical instinct woke with full vigor at the
very moment that adequate motive power became available,
and made inevitable the domination of the Western world by
a civilization grounded on machinery. Yet, inevitable though
the transformation was, the strain on the whole structure of
society caused agonies in the process of adjustment, until a
generation matured which had been bred in the living tradi-
tion of machines, mechanical technique and mechanized in-
dustries. The mastery of technique now so dominates all our
society that every type of activity is increasingly restricted by
the demands of specialization; and there can be no doubt that
much of the discontent that disturbs the Western world to-
day springs from the fact that we have so thoroughly worked
out the major implications of the mechanical age that little
remains for the youthful and ambitious but the subdivision
and re-subdivision of specialized techniques.

Considering the pains of transformation in the West, where
the new order was generated in and grew out of the old, the
transvaluation effected in Japan approaches the miraculous,
and the convulsions of Russia and China are no matter for
surprise. Russia, however, was a formless barbarism overlaid
by an aristocratic crust which gave a misleading impression
of identity with die West. When the crust was destroyed

z68 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

the barbarians below began to construct a civilization of their
own. Crude though their barbarism yet remains, it is so strong
and individual that it disdains mere imitation of the West,
and holds obstinately to its own vision of the construction of
a new industrialism and a new mechanized civilization,
which is to be something new in all history. China also in-
stinctively rejects the idea of straightforward adoption of
Western standards; but for the totally different reason that
its most genuine idealism lies in the past. Nor is this past a
primitive Golden Age falsified in the manner of Rousseau.
A certain loose type of thinking describes the social and eco-
nomic conditions of China as "medieval," because they are
not galvanized by the instinct for machinery which germi-
nated and began to flourish in the West after the close of the
Middle Ages, and was only delayed in its full development by
the lack of suitable fuel power. For no better reason than
this, Westerners are instinctively prone to compare any non-
mechanized culture with their own pre-machine past as
"primitive." The past to which China turns for its ideal of
civilization is neither one of medievalism nor one of over-
simplified "natural simplicity," but one of great spiritual
richness, creative achievement and elaborate structure, so
indubitably noble that it is not unreasonable to argue a case
attributing the misfortunes of China to a decline from its an-
cient standard, instead of to failure to assume an alien
standard.

The fact that gunpowder, the compass, printing and other
inventions which played an enormous part in the develop-
ment of the West from medievalism to civilization were pre-
viously known in China proves much more than the flat
statement usually offered that China was already civilized
when the West had not emerged from barbarism. The fact
that these inventions were never developed in China in the

EXPLOITATION AND WESTERNIZATION 169

dynamic style which characterized their effect on the culture
of the West ought to be recognized as proof that the genius
of Chinese civilization chose not to develop in the channels
which appeared obvious to the West, but sought by preference
other media for the highest expression of the powers of man.
The true point at issue in the conflict caused by the impact of
Westernism on China, including the reintroduction of original
Chinese inventions metamorphosed by Western use, is there-
fore not one of "progress" from medievalism to civilization,
but one of the substitution of one civilization for another.
Hence the long struggle, not yet decided, to master the West
and hold in check its inventions, rather than offer up the
proud heritage of the true Chinese civilization to the Moloch
of the West and its machines. In manufacture, in mechanized
agriculture, in motor and rail transport, in all the range of
Western activities, the old proud instinct holds with the ob-
stinacy of a fine tradition to the judgment that it may be ex-
pedient, for the sake of cash profit, to have the thing done,
but that there is not necessarily any virtue, any moral su-
periority in understanding how the thing is done; far less in
undertaking a career in the doing of it for the sake of satis-
fying the personal instinct for a noble and superior life.

The man of technical training, unless he has political con-
nections or family connections of a first-class order, ap-
proximates in social status to the mechanic; and the mechanic,
far from being the aristocrat of the artisans, is one of the
most dangerously discordant social elements in modern China.
Nor is the reason far to seek; for while Westernization has
proceeded as far as the adoption of the machine for the sake
of profit, the processes of the machine, technique itself for its
own sake, have not been naturalized. Failing high control and
direction, the machine is therefore exploited by manipulation,
by negotiation with the machine-men. While the engineers,

170 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

the masters of machines, have never risen as a class to the di-
rection of policy and the control of power, the mechanics, the
servants of machines, form a jealously self -conscious^ class
whose power depends on guarding the "secrets, the mys-
teries of the craft," of their mechanism, and who can by no
means be flatly ordered about. I have seen a major, in com-
mand of a party traveling by military motor transport in a
region under direct military administration, where effective
military control was based in theory on a system of motor
patrol-routes, unable to proceed at his own discretion because
his mechanics had reached a place where they preferred to
stop. The major shrugged his shoulders. "You can't get in
wrong with mechanics," he said; "if you do, they monkey
with the works."

Nor does this machine-servant even approach machine-
mastery, as might be expected. Strictly speaking, he is not
artisan but artist; if one goes far enough back it is not too
much to say that he is comparable, art for art, with the in-
spired alchemist who stands in the background of the origins
of true Western science, or with the magician or shaman, of
whom it may be said that he does not "control" the powers
with which he works; the powers manifest themselves through
him and control is negotiated in terms of art and adaptation.
Much has been said of the remarkable versatility which a
Chinese with no advantages of education or training can
achieve in the working of an engine; the knack of driving a
car with a motor "tied together with string" is a constant
source of humorous admiration. What is invariably missed
is that this knack of improvisation is a quality, not of trained
skill, but of adaptive ingenuity. The car is persuaded to run
in spite of the violence done to the principles of the engine.
It remains essentially an unmastered, alien group of forces,
which are not analyzed but taken as a whole and manipulated.

EXPLOITATION AND WESTERNIZATION 171

The art or knack, not the science, the magic, not the tech-
nique of engines forms the craft-knowledge of the mechanics
as a class. There is a difference in kind between this cajoling
of engines and the flair often demonstrated in the West,
where also many instances can be seen of machinery used be-
yond its proper power. The commonest difference is that in
the West the "type" of such performances is either the tinker-
ing of decrepit engines to work when they ought to be
scrapped, or the coaxing of normal engines to do more than
their designed work, this being accomplished by a quasi-
instinctive feeling for machinery, a mechanical second-nature
now bred into the fiber of the Western nature; whereas by
contrast the gasping bus (for instance) that still miraculously
achieves its daily run over Manchurian roads has been allowed
to decay to its distressing condition within a few months
after purchase, and is kept running not by the best tinkering
possible in the circumstances, but by some fortuitous, hit-
and-miss "inspiration" that "does just as well."

Many of the dominant men in China to-day, socially and
economically, the exploiters, the men of the "big interests,"
would very likely prefer to be able to use foreign mechanics
with the foreign engines, thus putting themselves in a po-
sition to deal with the alien but profitable force as a unit;
but this is precluded by the danger of the foreigner as an as-
sertive, aggressive personality. In Manchuria, however, where
non-Soviet Russians with no "rights" are available, and too
strong trade-union organization of Chinese mechanics (who
would tend to agitate against the employment of Russians)
is officially discouraged, it is common to see Russians in
charge of machinery operating under the control of Chinese
interests. Nor are these man-and-machine "units," though
admitted to be more efficient than the one-sided combination
of Chinese mechanic and foreign machine, placed under the

172 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

control of one man who is given a free hand. Indeed, such
men regularly complain that they cannot bring their em-
ployers to adopt a method of running and operation that is
really economic; that really meets, in fact, the requirements of
the machine. The Chinese employers, at the same time, com-
plain that foreign technicians are a cranky lot to put up with;
"they are so unbusinesslike."

There is, in fact, a constant, shifting, and to the blind for-
eigner incomprehensible, futile and wasteful process of
negotiation, adaptation and compromise between the man-
machine-unit and its owners or employers. Yet this is nothing,
after all, but the instinctive effort to subordinate the foreign
means to the Chinese method. It is the same struggle as that
(usually disguised by greater amenities) which takes place in
die working of every railway in which foreign investments
are protected by a partly foreign personnel whose duty is to
maintain the foreign standard of values of operating-costs,
profits, interest-payment and so forth; to do which it is neces-
sary not merely to "train a Chinese staff," which is easily
enough done, candidates of excellent quality being in good
supply, but to protect all the Western concepts implicated in a
railway from being transposed into Chinese terms. In propor-
tion as control of a railway is foreign, it is unsatisfactory to Chi-
nese; in proportion as it is Chinese, it is unsatisfactory to for-
eigners. Yet, apart from the obvious passion-engendering re-
sentment of a sensitive, proud nationalism, how little the inner
meaning of this truism is dealt with by either Chinese or for-
eign publicists, who perennially essay to convince each other
with claims for reasonable justice, disregarding fundamental
cleavages of instinct and point of view owing largely, of
course, to the lip-service now universally rendered to the
Western theorem that all true culture and civilization are one.

An enormous proportion of the technical terms that are cur-

EXPLOITATION AND WESTERNIZATION 173

rently being incorporated into the Chinese language is not
directly created; they are either artificially translated, or taken
over through the Japanese. The fact that such terms are writ-
ten in the Chinese character tones down the fact that they are
none the less in a foreign language, and a language far more
foreign to the existing body of Chinese thought than are, for
instance, the technical terms created from Latin and Greek
roots that are commonly used throughout the West. It is dif-
ficult for foreigners to appreciate that such terms have a sort
of unreality which keeps them alien from the body of the
language, and that the processes of thought behind these terms
are so alien to the language itself that many of them cannot
be expressed in terms naturally evolved from the language,
but must be dealt with in a language within the language.^

Nor is this a true parallel to the use of Graeco-Latin
technical-scientific jargon in Europe and America. The swift
development of technique in different nations of the West
was pursued on parallel courses; but a genuine unity of cul-
ture throughout the nations demanded a universal technical
phraseology. Nevertheless, the major part of the jargon of
medicine, of engineering, even of chemistry and physics, can
also be expressed clearly, without loss of scientific clarity, in
the vernacular of each nation, for the antecedent processes of
thought are native in each nation. In this lies the great handi-
cap of Chinese technical phraseology; for many terms either
cannot be expressed in locutions understandable by the peo-
ple, or have to be expressed with such a burden of circum-
locution that the thought which it is intended to convey is
borne down and smothered, becoming in the end meaning-
less and absurd; for the thought inherent in the processes
which it is desired to express is alien to the modes of thought
inherent in the language itself. Consequently a terminology
which is thought of in the West as merely a specialized Ian-

i 7 4 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

guage remains in China a foreign language, though written in
the Chinese character. The final proof of this is in the fact
that it is better for a Chinese to learn a foreign language as
a means to the mastery of advanced technique than to attempt
to study it in Chinese. The equivalent is true to a certain
extent of Japanese; but it would be absurd to^say^that an
American chemist or physicist needs to be proficient in Latin
and Greek.

This truth is perhaps more evident in Manchuria than else-
where; for throughout the North, where the alien machine is
frequently operated by an alien mechanic, the use of Chinese
neologisms is foregone, whether or not they are borrowed
through the Japanese. In Northern Manchuria especially
the language of technique, of technical appliances, of tech-
nical occupations is Russian, used as such not only between
Chinese and Russians but among Chinese themselves. The
operating language of the Chinese Eastern Railway has from
the very beginning been Russian, and this of necessity, not
because of political domination only. Recently, as a matter
of politics, it has been declared in principle that in railway af-
fairs Chinese must have an equal status with the Russian lan-
guage. Presumably a Chinese vocabulary, with its burden
of neologisms and its quota of terms borrowed through the
Japanese, will be introduced accordingly; but neither Chinese
nor Russians concerned with the railway feel this to be any-
thing but a gesture.

It is not only the higher ranges of the technical vocabulary
that are affected, however. On a Sungari river steamer all the
officers and crew may be Chinese, but the whole process of
operation and navigation is carried on in Russian. Nor are the
captain, helmsman, pilot, engineer, greaser and deckhand by
any means necessarily men who have grown up under Rus-
sian influence in Harbin or along the Sungari. A very large

EXPLOITATION AND WESTERNIZATION 175

proportion of them come from Taku (near Tientsin) or from
one of the Shantung ports, and therefore had an inclination
to work for their living on boats ; but on reaching the Sungari
as grown men they found that the "trade-union" language
of the profession was Russian; and Russian they learned. If
this language were not a class-language it would not be used,
as it is, even for such elementary terms as "left" and "right"
and even in calling out the depths (in Russian feet!) when
sounding at the bows. Yet, at the same time, this initiate lan-
guage is not adopted out of pure admiration for the superior
virtues of Russian civilization; as is abundantly proved by the
way in which numerous Russian words, used in occupational
jargon and in all kinds of slang, are adopted by shifting the
pronunciation into Chinese phonetic equivalents, to which at
the same time a twist is given that imparts a sort of humorous
contempt to the whole. Sao Tfrtze, "smelly Tatar," for sMat
is a good example. I remember also an occasion on a Sungari
steamer when a dinghy came away from one of the davits and
trailed precariously awash. A sailor rushed forward crying
Hsiao ch'uan lao-mari-la!zn expression which puzzled me,
since it meant literally "the small boat is old ants," which
might be rendered, perhaps, "the small boat is full of ants "
After inquiry I found that the phrase was perfectly ^intel-
ligible to the whole crew, lao-mcw being the Chinese pidgin-
Russian for slornat, "the small boat has broken loose." In
the same way morshen* "horse's body," is used for "machine"
thus conveying also the idea of "horsepower" and ma-shen
lao-mfrtia, "the horse's body is old ants," means "the ma-
chinery has broken down." Hud, from the Russian lyudei,
means "people," especially in the sense of "passengers." Here
the syllable Ku means "to wander," "to travel.'^ KcMioi
Jtu-lu-ft, from the Russian \rutit, means "to wind up," "to
crank a motor " Here the association is with the Chinese word

176 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

\uAu, "a wheel" Lao-po-tei, "a workman," is from the Rus-
sian robot, "work/' incorrectly used for rabotni\, "a work-
man." Here the syllable lao, "old," conveys a sense of familiar-
ity toward the person spoken to and of superiority on the part
of the person speaking. Many terms in this category are used
not only by the uneducated, but even by educated people who
do not happen to have studied Russian.

In other words, it is just as easy to learn a foreign language
and be done with it as to learn an awkward vocabulary of
terms that are none the less foreign for having been rendered
into Chinese. The learning of a foreign language, however, in
no way implies admiration for any inherent superiority in
foreign civilization or any of its mores. On the contrary, the
most illiterate unskilled workman who speaks a garbled
Russian, and for that reason rates himself high among his
fellows, none the less looks down with moral superiority on
all Russians as uncouth creatures entangled in barbaric mis-
conceptions of all the true values of life and culture. Even
such innocent Russianisms as the wearing of Russian costume
are felt to be, at the best, amusing self-indulgences, while such
mores as dancing and free-and-easy public association with
women are definitely felt to be vices vices that may be for-
given in the young, perhaps, but that are considered rather
serious if not shaken off when the time comes for a young
man to settle down.

The older generation regard with a good deal of alarm the
spread of Russian standards of courtship and marriage among
Chinese students. "They married of their own accord" (that
is, without previous arrangement through the parents) is a
common equivalent for "he keeps a mistress"; while "he
married a Russian" is the exact equivalent for "he keeps a
native woman." Foreign standards of morality, and even the
structure of the family, are not generally admitted to be worth
the name of "standard." The common verdict is, "They

EXPLOITATION AND WESTERNIZATION 177

mate and part like beasts, and have no notion of filial piety"
much as the colonial Westerner might say, "The position
of women among the natives is inferior, and family life may
be said hardly to exist."

In a society in which affairs of machinery tend thus to fall
into the hands of an artisan-class, with a jargon of their own
and. a social outlook of their own, who keep their quasi-occult
knowledge to themselves and endeavor consistently to uphold
the privilege of being negotiated with as a group before ef-
fective orders can be given to set the machinery in motion,
the effect of Western impact is more sharply focused than
ever. This isolation is all the more obvious because the men
of genuine expert technical training, having little real control
in the direction of affairs, unless they use a political approach,
are handicapped in undertaking enterprises in such a man-
ner as to make them more truly expressive of novel but genu-
inely Chinese ambitions.

From this lack of integration in the national life springs
a great danger of class-isolation identified with cultural hos-
tility, growing with the increase of activities that require
machinery, and increasing instead of diminishing the sense
of conflict and social disintegration already associated with
Westernization. Artisans, as a class, are men who by neglect
have lost a great deal of what is finest and soundest in the old
culture, especially that inarticulate but vigorous tradition
which makes the yeoman-peasant, for instance, a bulwark of
the old social morality, but have not acquired enough genuine
Western training to make them intelligent agents of West-
ernization. Consequently Westernization is felt to be a bru-
talizing agency among the lower orders, while educated men
of superior technical qualification find that if they are truly
ambitious the best use they can make of their Western
degrees is to use them as a gambit for entering a political
career.

CHAPTER VIII

SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION
MILITARY FRONTIER COLONIZATION

IN THE history of the "reservoir" military colonization for
the specific purpose of garrisoning areas of strategic impor-
tance must always have been of great consequence. This type
of colonization might even be employed as a measure for
holding in check the power of the "reservoir," in the inter-
ests of a dynasty whose authority was largely based on strategic
use of the "reservoir." Thus under the Manchu dynasty one
part of the "reservoir" was played off against another. Mongol
troops were used in China, but at an early date measures
were taken to prevent actual control by the Mongols of the
passes from Inner Mongolia into North China. In spite of the
fact that Inner Mongolian levies proved their loyalty during
the Taiping Rebellion and against the French and British k
1860-61, strategic control of the frontier was extended by in-
creased colonization in such regions as Jehol and Suiyiian.

Later attempts to plant colonies along the frontiers in the
areas of Russian pressure were also made chiefly through
the military organization. It may be said that under the
Manchus the colonization of remote regions was primarily a
question of strategy; and this applies especially to the Amur
frontier, the North Mongolia-Siberia frontier and Chinese
Turkestan. Granted the fact that there was no urge toward
colonization except as a matter of government policy, and that
all colonization was dominated by government officials, the

178

SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION 179

garrison method of settlement was probably better suited than
any other to the conditions of the time. The garrisons were
regarded, not as cantonments of professional troops perma-
nently under arms, but as groups of land-owning, self-
supporting yeoman farmers with a military tradition. The
able-bodied men were not permanently in service, but were
liable to be called on for service at need. They reported regu-
larly for drill and archery training, and instead of drawing
fixed pay they received subsidies in accordance with the de-
gree of qualification. Settlement was initiated by moving
Bannermen and their families to the chosen region, where-
upon the able-bodied men at once and automatically formed
a military reserve of land-fast, self-supporting yeomanry
a much better method than the maintenance of regiments in
barrack-garrisons. Successive imperial edicts make it plain
that the "reservoir" was in truth a "reservoir," for there is
little reference to military units, but repeated reference to the
reliance of the State on a good sound Banner tradition con-
servative social ideas, a yeoman-farmer economy and a mar-
tial spirit.

A curious and typically Manchu blend of Chinese and
tribal ideals is apparent in imperial references to a model
manner of life combining agricultural work in season and
hunting in the forests in autumn after the harvest. Any tend-
ency to revert to the tribal life entirely was deplored. Ef-
forts were made at intervals to clear the mountains and forests
of wandering hunters, ginseng-gatherers, gold-washers and
men who cut down timber without authority. Nominally
these men were guilty of trespass on imperial preserves and
suspected of banditry; but there are also repeated references
to the fact that they were men "without registry." Evidently
there was an underlying feeling that all good subjects ought to
be identified with places and settlements, for while the prof es-

i8o MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

sion of the wandering forest hunter was forbidden on prin-
ciple, the settled farming population was not only permitted
but exhorted to ride and hunt, and it was even considered per-
missible for such farmers to penetrate, in season, into the im-
perial domains. The people who had taken to the Chinese
ideal of a settled farming life were urged again and again
not to forget the manly practices of horsemanship and
archery and, later, musketry.

When settlements of this type succeeded at all, especially
in Northern Manchuria, it is obvious that the area brought
within reach and under control must have been far greater
than the area actually opened to cultivation. The progress of
settlement also benefited by the use of slaves, especially when
city Manchus were given land grants which they lacked the
experience to farm themselves. Slave-cultivators must un-
doubtedly have increased the area under cultivation, but the
system had its disadvantages. It encouraged the wealthy, es-
pecially those who had become successful in official careers,
to become absentee landlords. It is a matter of common
knowledge that at the present time a great deal of land in
Manchuria is held by the descendants of slaves and stewards
who usurped in time the estates of their proprietors.

On the whole this type of military colonization, relying on
the establishment of a population of martial spirit, from which
good recruits could be raised at need, appears to have been
satisfactory. The greater number of the colonists were yeomen
who had not been dissociated by permanent professional mili-
tary service from the life of the prosperous and self-reliant
small-holder. In the age in which it was devised, no better
method could have been found for holding down a frontier
and maintaining the essential spirit of the "reservoir." It had,
it is true, the inherent weakness of the "reservoir" the able
and ambitious men, instead of turning their energy to frontier

SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION 181

expansion, were attracted irresistibly to the south, to the quest
of power and preferment in official careers, in which they
could turn to profit the great initial advantage of belonging
to the dominant regional faction. It suffered also from the
clumsy economics of the age. Poor communications and dis-
tance from markets, excluded jiie idea of .exploitation,, .which
Is "an essential element of pioneering colonization as under-
stood by the pioneering nations bred up in the Western
civilization. The chief growth of population was effected by
the natural increase and gradual spread of agricultural com-
munities economically self-contained. In fact, only the par-
ticular social and political spirit of the "reservoir" distin-
guished Manchu Manchuria from the general polity of China.
Even military colonization was analogous to colonization
generally, and to the influx of Chinese into the "reservoir,"
in that the expansion achieved can best be expressed in terms
of the characteristic Chinese "spread," as against the terms
of "drive" in which Western colonizing is typically worked
out.

Military colonization at the present time shows very clearly
the continuance of the old tradition. Its aim is still a com-
bination of providing a population and providing a defense.
Its function is still analogous, in a striking degree, to the func-
tion of the military colonies of the "reservoir"; for the Man-
churian provinces which are heirs to the old "reservoir" con-
tinue to exercise on China proper a pressure greater than the
pressure on Manchuria exerted by China. This may be con-
cisely expressed in the formula that the northern foreign
frontier policy of China remains secondary to the China
policy of the Manchurian provinces. Nor is this by any means
to be construed as a bias toward Manchurian autonomy or in-
dependence as Western societies understand those terms.
Important moves toward political autonomy there have been

182 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

in Manchuria, and they may recur; but they are altogether
different from any independence movement of any colony
of any Western nation. This again cannot be identified with
the geographical fact that most outer dominions of Western
nations are separated by oceans from the colonizing nation,
while the outer dominions of China are contiguous with
China. As far as that goes, California cares less for the old
United States than they do for California, while conversely
the sea-divided Chinese communities of Malaysia have more
influence on China than China has on them.

The fact is that Western movements of independence are
centrifugal and uni-directional. When the American Colo-
nies established their independence they did no more than
define schematically the fact that England had become a
historic focus of minor validity, the new future foci of im-
perative validity being the Continental Divide and the shores
of the Pacific. When an outlying Western community di-
vides politically from the parent nation, influences of all
kinds continue to flow vigorously from the old community
to the new; but when received they are not reflected back
or at least the reflex action is of minor importance. They
are taken up, informed with new vigor and projected on-
ward and outward. The Pacific Ocean and South American
future of the United States entirely dwarfs its European
future. The contemporary importance of the United States in
the affairs of Europe is a chance effect of the unity of Western
civilization, and is as much distrusted and resented by the
people of the United States as it is by the peoples of Europe.

Conversely, in the affairs of China, a different organic style
is to be discerned. No matter how effective the political
autonomy of Manchuria at any given moment, China itself re-
mains the major focus of the life of the community, eclipsing
the importance of the Korean-Siberian-Mongolian frontiers.

SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION 183

The influences received from China are reflected back on
China with a fresh and intensified vigor, and what is radiated
toward the periphery is passed on with diminished force. It
is not exactly that the frontier provinces of China are centrip-
etal, for "centrifugal" and "centripetal" are Western terms
that lose the edge of their exactitude when applied in China.
Rather, the autonomy-tendencies of Chinese provinces reveal
an omni-directional capacity, in contrast with the uni-
directional force of Western political action. The autonomy of
provinces, avoiding the stemming-off process of Western in-
dependence movements, works itself out in a coagulation of
groups disposed with the lack of declared form of a "Chinese
puzzle" about a center pulsing with life, and strongly felt
but weakly defined. Unity of civilization, in spite of re-
gional politics, reveals the strongly felt center, but it is a
center without schematic definition, a "center" that may be
said to vacillate, perhaps, in the huge region of the Yangtze
basin, from the ramparts of Tibet to the Yellow Sea. In no
nation is the site of the capital city so revealing, and so su-
perficial in importance, as in China.

Military colonization at the present time illustrates the im-
portance of new factors. The terms of land grants are a
modification of the old system, and the governing ideas are
largely the same; but they are hampered in fulfillment by
the prime change of military organization from a system of
regional levies engaged in soldiering only when called out to a
system of mercenary professional armies. This in itself is an ef-
fect of Western influence, and consequently the armies, in spite
of their inefficiency from a Western professional point of view,
are a dreadfully efficient factor in the threatened destruction
of the old Chinese way of life, and the old values of civilization.
Because there is at present a superfluity of soldiers, modern
schemes of military colonization are normally drawn up with

184 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

a view to the desirability of disbanding troops; whereas un-
der the Manchus there was no over-supply, and the main
problem was the safeguarding of the potential supply. The
most obvious impediment to the successful disbandment and
settlement on the land of professional mercenary soldiers is
that they make very poor colonists. It is true that the majority
of the men are country-bred and have either worked on farms
or know something of farm life; but the overwhelming major-
ity are men who have long been dissevered from their fam-
ilies, and in their years of military service have lost the taste
for the monotonous drudgery of farm labor. It is true that
the soldier, like the peasant, lives on the coarsest of food and
rarely has money to spend; but at least he has more oppor-
tunities for the diversions of city life, besides which he is
usually thoroughly infected with that spirit of the reckless
adventurer which always pervades a nation torn by revolu-
tion and civil war, when every illiterate trooper stands an
equal chance of thrusting his way to rank and power. The
average ranker in a military colonization area makes no bones
about his distrust of the project into which he has been
drafted, considering that he has lost status.

The social background of the soldier-colonist is thus as
different as can be from that of the yeoman type available in
Manchu days. Although, under the Manchus, efforts were
made to provide land and opportunities for Peking Manchus
and other city Bannermen who had lost touch with the life
of their forbears, a good stiffening was always available, of
Manchuria-born, farm-bred men, Chinese and Manchu, of ad-
mirable stock. Under modern conditions a great many, if not
most of the soldiers in the Manchurian armies are recruited
from Shantung and Chihli, who may be of peasant stock,
and may have been in Manchuria for some years, but were
certainly not bred to the pioneer colonizing tradition. The
Manchuria-born farm lad, if he is making good money, is not

SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION 185

likely to join the army; if he has joined the army, he is un-
likely to welcome the idea of being put back on the land.

Not only do the troops themselves tend to distrust tie
whole business of colonization, but they do not mix well with
civilian settlers. I remember asking a tenant fanner, who was
working on the land of a great official on a forty per cent crop-
share rental, why he did not move up a few miles and take
land of his own under the good terms offered to colonists
who were needed to supplement a military colonization en-
terprise. "With them!" he said. "That's likely! What with
the beating and the cursing !" In fact the Manchurian farmer is
comparatively independent and self-reliant, and likes to make
his own terms. He is willing to work in association with of-
ficials, but is exceedingly suspicious of official "schemes.**
Since, however, civilian colonists, preferably men with fam-
ilies, are needed to round out a project for disbandment-
colonization, they are generally gathered from among refugees
from China proper. The refugee, unfortunately, is com-
paratively shiftless and unadaptable. Once he has received
subsidy, he tends to demand further subsidy. Soldier and
civilian colonists together therefore tend to form a somewhat
unassimilable bloc on the outskirts of older "natural" pioneer
settlements.

In the upshot it is not surprising to find that military colo-
nization tends to run a course of compromise. A minority of
soldiers do take up land, often in association with officers.
The majority of the land actually taken up on special military
terms is acquired by officers who have enough capital to bring
in civilian tenants and proceed in the manner of ordinary
capitalists engaged in land development. The rate of civilian
settlement gradually increases and becomes normal, while
the bulk of the troops for whom the project was nominally in-
tended remain in garrison cantonments, occupied from time
to time with patrolling the country against bandits. The

i86 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

fringe of settlement in any country is likely to pass through
a period of lawlessness until, in fact, it is no longer the
fringe. In Manchuria they have, besides, a saying that "the
more soldiers the more bandits." In a period of recurrent
civil wars, troops naturally prefer campaigns on a large scale,
with chances for loot and promotion, to the equal risks and
smaller rewards of frontier patrol. Consequently, when troops
are scattered out over a wild country in small detachments, de-
sertion is common, the men turning bandit and increasing
the general disorder. Conversely, when bandits are really hard
pressed, they often come to terms by enlisting as units in the
army; whereupon they come within the law but all too com-
monly do not lose the habits of violence and indiscipline.

If the region prospers, passing beyond the first period of
lawlessness, the importance of the group of officials concerned
in its administration and exploitation increases accordingly.
This importance in turn demands an increased military es-
tablishment, in order that the new regional-political group
may make itself felt. From this derives the paradox that it is
a usual procedure to send out recruiting agents to Shantung
and Chihli to find farmers to be turned into soldiers to garri-
son a region that is ostensibly being developed as a measure
for disbanding surplus troops; at the same time that refugees
are also being gathered to colonize the region to produce reve-
nue to finance the troops.

In this respect there is a marked contrast between con-
ditions under the Manchu dynasty and at the present time.
Under the Manchus, one of the normal abuses of official life
(frequently referred to in, for instance, the satiric and pica-
resque novels which were often under official ban and had to
be surreptitiously circulated) was the practice of reporting
a nominal payroll of troops far in excess of the actual estab-
lishment* At that time military officials were allotted revenue,

SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION 187

but only exceptionally had the power of controlling or di-
rectly levying it. At die present time, all real power resides
with military groups, regionally based and masking their ter-
ritorial identity under the name of political factions, who
monopolize practically the whole of the inland revenue of
the nation. The ambitious official, therefore, of necessity
maintains a military establishment in excess of the numbers
to which he is nominally entitled, holding the surplus in re-
serve to make a bid for increased power when opportunity
offers. He draws what pay he can for these troops from what-
ever central organization nominally claims his allegiance,
and pays the rest what he can, when he can, from the revenues
which he raises himself or derives privately from enterprises
of exploitation in which he engages through agents.

Considering the strong continuity between the history and
present situation of Manchuria, which is bound up with the
necessity of upholding a strong military position in re-
lation to China proper, any measure that promotes colo-
nization, expands the exploitable area and increases the
revenue-producing population, is a good measure, including
military colonization. At the same time military colonization,
whether or not undertaken with the intention of disbandment,
is strictly conditioned by the fact that the very structure and
mode of function of contemporary political life forbid any
real reduction in armed strength. In the near future there-
fore it is likely that the total military establishment will have
to be increased at least in proportion to the general increase
of population, if not at an even higher rate.

THE OPIUM PIONEERS

Of all forms of unassisted colonization in Manchuria, es-
pecially of adventurous colonization, the most creative, fruit-

i88 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

ful and beneficial, with the single exception of the remarkable
Shantung style of migration, has undoubtedly been opium
colonization. Opium has played in Manchuria the part played
by gold in California, Australia and elsewhere. The fact is
plain, and ought to be frankly recognized, that hundreds of
square miles in frontier regions of Manchuria, now inhabited
by an industrious and prosperous population, could never
have been opened up and settled so early, rapidly and thor-
oughly without the lure of opium.

Unfortunately it is impossible to obtain the figures of opium
production and trade, and difficult to approach the study of
the real importance of opium in the economic and social life
of the community. This is chiefly because, in all public dis-
cussion of opium, conventional attitudes have become ob-
ligatory. It is hardly considered respectable even to discuss
the opium problems of China as if they were, in the main, like
the prohibition problem of the United States, problems of
national legislation and social morality; convention demands
that they be discussed as if they were governed by standards
of universal validity. This attitude is essentially unreal and
certainly not Chinese in origin, but is subscribed to by Chinese
who enter the debate because the association of opium with
political events of international significance has artificially at-
tached to all opium questions a quasi-political value of inter-
national importance. Not since the implication of opium in
the issues of the War of 1840, issues which basically had
nothing to do with opium and in which opium was only
fortuitously involved, has it been customary to deal with the
non-moral aspects of poppy growing, the opium trade and
opium smoking.

To make matters worse the British apologists for opium in
the nineteenth century, by pushing to absurd lengths argu-
ments intended to vindicate on moral grounds a trade that in

SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION 189

its origins had nothing to do with morality one way or the
other, succeeded in permanently discrediting the one real ar-
gument, reasonable in itself, that the use of opium is not
necessarily a degrading vice. Since that time, and largely on
that account, as well as because opium and its derivatives
are rarely used in Europe and America except by people al-
ready on the verge of degeneracy, there has been a prac-
tically universal acceptance of the canon that opium must,
a priori, always and everywhere be an overwhelming evil for
Asiatics, whether under self-government or under the im-
perial government of a Western power. It is now hardly pos-
sible for a serious student, except at the risk of having his
motives impugned, to air the fact that Chinese can, and often
do, consume a great deal of opium without becoming addicts
or suffering any harm whatever, any more than the Westerner
who has a drink when he feels like it but is not a drunkard;
and that probably men of any other race could do the same,
under equal conditions. It is, indeed, impossible to discuss
reasonably the opium trade in China, as a trade, comparable,
but for the letter of legality, with the brewery trade in Great
Britain as "the trade," and open, like the purveying of al-
coholic drinks, to grave abuse if not regulated on practical
and social rather than moral grounds. It is quite in keeping
with the associations of "guilt" now attached to all trade in
opium that, in order to press home the moral claim against
foreigners who profit from opium and, latterly, other nar-
cotics, the Chinese profits from the same trade should be
habitually obscured.

On examining the actual business of growing poppies
and distributing opium in China at the present time, it at
once becomes apparent that the most serious abuse, creating
a social danger far greater than the tax on society of unpro-
ductive drug addicts, is forced cultivation of the poppy. The

190 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

normal form of overproduction is that found in territories
where land taxation is enforced at a rate which can only be
met by poppy growing; the revenue usually being spent in
the maintenance of armies. Production on such a large scale
brings down the price and increases the consumption; but,
more than that, it weakens the economic structure by re-
ducing the area under food crops. In heavily populated agri-
cultural communities in China this is very serious, for the
average farmer, even in normal times, not only lives poorly
and eats poorly but is unable to hold more than a very small
food reserve. Lack of railways, bad roads and the slowness
and cumbrousness of road transport have always made it
difficult to transport food supplies even over comparatively
short distances. Under the stronger unity of an imperial
government, supplies were brought to Peking by the Grand
Canal, and State granaries in the provinces protected the
greater part of the country in seasons of bad harvest. Since
the fall of the Manchus, the regional storage of grain by
officials has been generally discontinued. One of the con-
sequences of this loss of grain reserves is a decided weaken-
ing of rural economy. Opium, in loads of small bulk and high
value, can be sent out much more easily than grain consign-
ments, of great bulk and lower value, can be brought in; and
this applies not only to hilly regions but to any region dis-
tant by more than a cart-haul of two or three days from a rail-
way. In a region, therefore, in which the land tax has en-
forced poppy growing widely enough to reduce food crops to
a bare subsistence level, one bad season can precipitate a
famine, even when other parts of the country have an ample
reserve.

As for the abuse of opium in consumption, the chief danger
is not that men smoke opium, but that they do not know of
anything else more worth doing. The chief social danger of

SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION 191

drunkenness in the countries of the West is among the lower
strata of the population, where the individual, sunk in the
crowd and losing hope and ambition in an apparently soul-
less economic situation, may be reduced to spending what
he cannot afford in the only way of alleviation and temporary
release that he knows. In the same way in China, in an era
of social change, of strife without end, lack of economic
security and hopelessness all too often seemingly without
horizon, it is in the lower strata, the foundations on which
society ought to be based, that the greatest damage is done.
If people of the leisured classes destroy their own usefulness
by dissipation, whether they prefer drink or drugs, they can
always be replaced. They make a sensational topic for dis-
cussion, but they are not nearly so great a tax on the nation,
nor so great a danger to society, as a degraded producing class.
The men who are most harmed by opium, and who do the
most harm to society, are not those who can afford to pay for
their pleasures, but those who buy opium to-day because the
inadequate money they have is pitifully insufficient to buy
hope of security or real betterment for the morrow. Even
superficial observation shows that there are noticeably more
hopeless addicts in a region where poppy growing is en-
forced by high taxation than in a region where it is volun-
tarily but illegally grown, and locally consumed to a certain
extent but chiefly exported at a high profit.

On almost every frontier of settlement in Manchuria the
evil features of the picture are altered in a most remarkable
way. The pioneer setder can often make out of opium a
profit offered by no other crop. Agricultural districts in China,
generally speaking, are self-sufficient to a degree unknown in
Western countries with highly developed transport systems.
They export comparatively little, and transport that little
over comparatively short distances, the agricultural com-

i 9 2 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

munities being grouped about market towns which provide
most of the needed trade and traffic. In Manchuria, the
figures of railway mileage per square mile of territory are
higher than in China. The real figures; that is, the railway
mileage per square mile of inhabited and productive terri-
tory, must obviously be very much higher. Agricultural Man-
churia, in strong contrast with China proper, lives by the ex-
port of its produce in great bulk over comparatively long
distances. The producing areas nearest to the service of rail-
ways and river steamers have so great an advantage that the
new settler, moving out to the fringe of cultivation, faces a
difficulty in getting his grain to market at a profit; and this
difficulty increases rapidly with the ratio of distance. If,
however, he produces opium, his problems are solved. High
price for small bulk covers the cost of transportation and gives
a handsome profit. Money brings in traders, and encourages
the growth of villages and small-town communities. These in
turn create a demand for cheap locally produced food, and
result in the settlement of normal agricultural communities.
The settlement of the Lower Sungari, from Sanhsing to
the Amur, was due chiefly to opium cultivation; much more,
by universal local testimony, than it was to the river steamers.
First the opium made it profitable to increase the steamer
transport, and then the increased transport made it profitable
to increase the production of grain and soy beans. It is also
said that the extended service from the Sungari to the Ussuri
would not yet be profitable were it not for the opium, but
that the existence of the service will rapidly increase traffic
to a point where opium becomes of minor importance. A
great proportion of the settlers now moving by steamer down
the Sungari to the Amur, and thence along the Chinese bank
of the Amur and up the Ussuri, are attracted by the prospects
of opium growing. Fuchin, the largest town on the Sungari

SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION 193

below Sanhsing, grew from a village of Fishskin Tatars to
a town of probably well over one hundred thousand popula-
tion, in a few years, chiefly because it was the center of a great
poppy-growing region. From farmers and traders alike can
be heard the tale of the boom years and easy money when
opium was the paying crop. Opium has been driven out now
toward the farther fringes, but that does not mean that
Fuchin suffers from depression. It has several flour mills
which are credited with profits equal to the total invested
capital, every normal working year. In spite of the long up-
river haul to Harbin it does a flourishing trade in agricultural
produce; and if trade on the much shorter and easier down-
river haul to Russian territory across the Amur were freed of
legal restrictions, it would increase enormously.

A comparable region is that which will be traversed by the
Solun Railway, now under construction. Here, on the western
frontier of Manchuria, all Chinese colonization in advance
of the railway was based either on the supply of grain to the
Mongols, or of opium to the Chinese market. With the intro-
duction of an official program of colonization in that region,
poppy growing has been forbidden, and many of the original
colonists, discontented with the law, have moved on beyond
its reach. In this and many another region just coming within
the scope of rapid settlement and development the complaint
can be heard, "If only we were allowed to raise opium, you'd
see how this place would boom"; but as a matter of fact the
mere transfer from poppy growing to normal agriculture
is a standard indication that transport and other facilities
have been developed to a point which eliminates the im-
portance of opium.

Luckily, the administrative authorities of Manchuria do
not have to rely on moral conviction alone for the formula-
tion of a policy in dealing with opium. It cannot be denied

194 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

that officials are sometimes involved in the opium traffic.
A late governor of Heilungchiang, now deceased, was reputed
to draw a large income from opium grown on his wilderness
holdings; or at least, minor officials under him profited by
the trade. On the other hand, the more powerful an official is,
the more likely he is to be interested in land development,
grain companies, flour mills, railways and steatiiers. All of
these require normal agricultural production to furnish trade
and cargo; for which reason the overwhelming tendency, as
a frontier region is settled up and comes under the same
general administrative system as the older Chinese-populated
regions of Manchuria, is to clear out the poppy farmers,
forcing them on to a still farther frontier. It is the enormous
reserve of unpopulated land that saves Manchuria from being
seriously menaced, economically, by poppy growing.

Opium has been cultivated openly, under official license
and land tax, in the oldest settled regions of Manchuria, in
years when the large revenue thus available was imperatively
needed for the financing of Manchurian armies participating
in civil war in China. In ordinary years, however, this is not
necessary. A sufficient supply can be raised in outlying re-
gions, beyond the scope of fully established and fully staffed
civil administration, satisfying the public demand without
endangering the economic structure of ordinary society or
reducing the food supply and the tonnage demanded by trade
and transport. The highly practical attitude toward the laws
against opium is well illustrated by the progressive laxity of
enforcement as one moves outward toward the frontiers.
The steamers and carts that feed the trade of Harbin by water
and road are searched for opium on arrival at Harbin; but
aboard the same steamers, and at the inns used by the same
carts, on the radii outward from Harbin, opium is bought,
sold and smoked without concealment.

SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION 195

The communities whose chief occupation is poppy growing
provide some of the finest frontiersmen in Manchuria-
men of adventure and enterprise who year by year expand
the frontiers of effective Chinese occupation. This the gold
prospectors have never been able to do to anything like the
same extent, because of the enduring social and administra-
tive prejudice against the private exploitation of minerals.
The gold prospector, once his "strike" is known, and author-
ity arrives, cannot stay to share in the benefits of his discovery.
The gold is placed under official or semi-official monopoly,
and he has no choice but to become a laborer on the site of
his own discovery, or to vanish and seek for himself some new
site for furtive exploitation. The opium grower, on the other
hand, knows that he may be able to stay for years, until the
whole economic aspect of the region changes. He founds a
community and a village, which grows its own food and
gradually develops a trade,- which is attracted by the compara-
tively high buying power of the village.

A frontier opium-producing region is, on first acquaintance,
lawless and bandit infested; but in reality there is far more
peril for the stranger than for the people of the region. Ban-
ditry is ruled by strict convention. Many of the bandits are
themselves poppy growers in season. A great number of them
are recruited from outside adventurers, but others are drawn
from among the unmarried men of the poppy-cultivating vil-
lages. The men with families live in villages, and often the
bandits are chiefly financed by subsidies from opium villages
which they protect from the law. Inter-bandit and inter-
village feuds arise, but on the whole the man who knows
his way about the region need not find trouble unless he looks
for it. Outlying detachments of troops or police may demand
a share in die profits, and occasionally one gang will jump
the opium convoy of another; but the average tendency is to

196 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

break new ground rather than challenge a community al-
ready established.

When in the course of time the frontier of normal settle-
ment is pushed forward to include the fringe of outlying
opium villages, it is quite common for a number of the vil-
lagers to stay on, using their local knowledge to advantage
in the expansion of trade and the rise of land values; just
as it is quite common for local bandits to make terms with
the newcomers and turn themselves into police or troops.
These elements that remain provide a continuity between
the old days and the new. On the other hand a large propor-
tion of these outlying frontiersmen, who have never known
any law but that of their own gangs and resent the imposi-
tion of outside control, move on still farther into the wilder-
ness, carrying on the vigorous tradition of founding fresh
communities. There are, by common report, "outlaw" opium
villages on the Chinese side of the Ussuri that are virtually
autonomous. They defend their valley approaches, govern
themselves and hold themselves independent of ordinary
civil administration, admitting no officials and paying no
taxes.

Yet these outlaws are valuable defenders of the frontier.
Were it not for the poppy, Chinese colonization in force
would not reach the Ussuri for a good many years to come.
Although it can be reached by steamer, the distance from
markets and the expanse of unsettled wilderness to be over-
passed before the Ussuri is reached are factors that as yet for-
bid an agricultural boom. Were it not for the lure of opium
the Chinese on the Chinese side of the Ussuri would find
themselves in danger of being outnumbered, in a region dif-
ficult of access, where adequate policing is as yet impossible,
by Russians who have migrated across the frontier because
of dissatisfaction with Soviet rule, and Koreans who, after

SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION 197

migrating from Korea to Primorsk because of discontent
under Japanese rule, have later moved again from Russian
into Chinese territory. As it is, however, every steamer that
runs from the Sungari down into the Amur and then up again
into the Ussuri carries its complement of Chinese colonists,
and the Chinese population is growing at a yearly accelerated
pace. It can only be a question of a few years before the in-
crease of numbers will demand other kinds of exploitation
and a greater development of normal administration. If these
demands can be met by an expansion of transport, both by
river and land, the Ussuri valley will automatically be brought
within the scope of "regular" colonization*

THE SHANTUNG TRADITION

The long-established practice of migrating to Manchuria
to work for a season, in order to get funds for going back to
China to stay, is one of the evidences of the negative style of
Chinese migration, and illustrates its characteristic form of
drift. On the other hand, it has played a large part in the
establishment of the Shantung element in the Chinese popu-
lation of Manchuria, and is also responsible for the fact
which might at first seem paradoxical that the Shantung
settlers are, by general recognition, the soundest and most
successful of all immigrants. There is no adequate explana-
tion other than the fact that the settler who derives from the
old system of seasonal migration has behind him a solid
tradition. To him Manchuria means something definite be-
fore he ever goes there, and when he sets out he has before
him a known course of action. This, more than any question
of facility of transport, similarity of agricultural methods, or
any other factor whatever, explains the extraordinary pre-
dominance of Shantung men in Manchuria. A living social

198 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

tradition has more validity than the most pressing economic
necessity.

The association of Shantung with Manchuria is very old,
having in all probability been established in prehistoric times,
and appears to be connected primarily with the ease of sea-
communication between the Shantung peninsula and the
Liaotung peninsula. Even at the time of the rise of the Man-
chus there seems to have been a conspicuously strong pro-
portion of Shantung men and men of Shantung descent
among the Chinese enlisted as Chinese Bannermen. Certainly
they have been regarded, ever since Manchu times, as a
special class in the community. In everyday speech, in Man-
churia, Shantung men are referred to simply as Shantung
men; people from that part of Chihli province adjacent
to the Great Wall at Shanhaikuan by a slang name which
refers to their accent, and men from the rest of North China
(except for Shansi, which is almost exclusively associated
with pawnbroking) under the inclusive term "people from
within the Wall"; while Southerners are specifically called
Southerners, with the implication that they are, compara-
tively speaking, outsiders.

The facility of sea communication first made it possible
for men to migrate from a thickly populated region, without
passing through intermediate territory in which there was
no room or need for them, to a thinly populated region in
which there was a demand for their labor. They could em-
bark in Shantung at a number of convenient ports and dis-
embark also at a choice of ports; while the valley of the lower
Liao gave a direct route for penetration into the hinterland.
The land approach was through the bottle-neck passage at
Shanhaikuan, west and northwest of which penetration was
limited physically by hilly country and politically by the
comparatively unreceptive attitude of the Mongols. More-

SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION 199

over this region was more or less monopolized by the early
established frontier Chinese, whose great center was at Chin-
chou. This population, while itself expanding as opportunity
offered, and exploiting the Mongol trade in particular, im-
peded the advance of non-frontier Chihli men from behind,
who neither shared their traditions nor understood their
methods. Thus the land migration depended largely on the
increase of the actual frontier population and was in the
main characterized by "spread" without "drive." It is true
that poor men from remoter Chihli and Shantung have al-
ways been able to find their way by land to Manchuria.
Their numbers, however, until the railway was built, were
kept down by difficulties of time and expense, and the inert
resistance of an intervening population which had no par-
ticular interest in supplying work or food to poor migrants.
The shorter time and expense of the sea passage, together
with direct access to regions where work could be found,
encouraged the practice of seasonal migration and return.
This was further encouraged by the fact that the great land
holders of the "reservoir" had no particular need of tenants,
but benefited by extra "hands" during the short plowing,
planting, cultivating and harvest season. With the extra
labor they could produce a surplus of grain, a great part of
which was also exported by sea. There is, however, no doubt
that a certain number of the seasonal migrants remained,
after perhaps one or two trips, as permanent settlers, and that a
far greater number could have remained, in spite of the Man-
chu laws of land tenure, if they had been impelled by a true
quest for new lands and opportunities, and elbow-room for
new growth and self-expression. Indeed, the seasonal mi-
grants to Manchuria often prolonged their stay to several
years, without entertaining the idea of permanent settlement;
and this type of long-term temporary immigrant is still

aoo MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

very common. The land laws alone cannot account for the
strong tendency to return to China after working in Man-
churia for a season. The provincial records frequently refer
to the need for keeping the tiu min, the wandering people,
from settling without authority; but whenever they did
settle and establish a hold, the offense was repeatedly con-
doned. The desire not to leave China permanently must there-
fore have had a deciding importance; it manifested itself in
the feeling that definite settlement in Manchuria was an ex-
pedient only for those destitute of other resources, a mark
of exile, failure and defeat. To my mind, this pull toward
China is proof of the orientation of the true Chinese tradition;
while the Manchu land laws themselves are a proof of the
assumption of this tradition by the Manchus. The desire to
safeguard the Manchu dominance in the "reservoir," far from
being a measure solely designed to repress the Chinese, was
congruent with the immemorial Chinese formula, long before
expressed in the Great Wall frontier system, that a northward
shift of Chinese population must never be put forward as a
desideratum, and never effected save as an expedient. The
most successful emigrant, and socially the most respected,
was the man who went out, made his money, and came back.
When, however, railways and modern exploitation in-
creased the demand for men in Manchuria, and the cumula-
tive disasters of disintegration within China began to force
up the supply of emigrants, the Shantung type of seasonal mi-
gration provided a transition-period link of inestimable value.
Numbers of "old hands" were available, men who had been
to Manchuria several times, knew the conditions and were
able to guide contingents from their old home villages to
the places where they could find work or land. Other "old
hands" who had already settled in the new country provided
nuclei for further settlement, gathering about them friends

SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION 201

and neighbors from their old homes and giving news in ad-
vance of the number who could be accommodated. The
services of these old hands are curiously similar to those of
the Russian peasants described by Stephen Graham, 1 who used
to travel through Siberia to select in advance a site for coloni-
zation, returning after they had made their choice to fetch
a contingent from west of the Urals.

Even so, the supply of permanent settlers never satisfied
the potential demand, and seasonal migrants continued to
outnumber permanent settlers until the situation in Shan-
tung made it increasingly unsafe to return there with money.
The period of maximum disorder in Shantung, when famine
augmented the effects of military demands and bandit depre-
dations, coincided roughly with a period of minimum asser-
tion in Manchuria on the part of both Russia and Japan.
In this period the whole population of Manchuria took heart
of grace; a spirit of increased confidence and optimism was
abroad, and there was a feeling that Russia at last was in re-
treat and Japan on the verge of yielding. The years^of spec-
tacular migration, in which the yearly immigration first
showed a preponderance of settlers over seasonal laborers,
and the figures mounted to something like a million a year,
with half a million permanent settlers, were 1926, 1927* 1928,
with an abrupt check in 1929 when Russia at last jibbed at
the pressure that was being put upon her, and the Japanese
attitude hardened in sympathy with Russia.

The years of rapid expansion are curiously interesting.
Settlers who might never have been drawn into Manchuria
by the power of attraction were forced to go there, and in
enormous numbers, by the conditions within China. At the
same time Russia, feeling for a new and stronger position in
the Far East, was diplomatically conciliating Japan and en-

1 Stephen Graham, Through Russian Central Asia. London, Cassell, 1916.

202 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

deavoring to secure an orthodox diplomatic recognition in
North China, as a basis for more definite procedure. For these
reasons Russian activities in Manchuria were greatly cur-
tailed and directed instead toward suitable parties in China
itself, especially in the South. Instead of bearing directly on
Manchuria an effort was made to increase the Russian influ-
ence throughout all China, thus eventually bearing on Man-
churia also. It appears that Chinese opinion misjudged the
Russian policy as a confession of weakness in Manchuria
and an attempt to effect a lodgment elsewhere instead. In
the meantime Japan, attempting to improve the tone of its
relations with all the Powers interested in the Pacific, and
making extraordinary efforts to show its adherence to the
spirit of the Washington Conference, was doing its best to
conciliate China both in Manchuria and elsewhere. The main
object of Japan was to show that while nothing would be
yielded to China as a concession to forceful measures, sympa-
thetic attention would be given to a number of old points
of dispute if they were approached through friendly negotia-
tion. 2 The rapprochement between Japan and Russia al-

2 The Japanese "policy of conciliation and cooperation" broke down calami-
tously in 1931. It can hardly be doubted that the Chinese considered this policy
to be no better than a velvet glove intended to make more decorous the dreaded
mailed fist. The Japanese, for their part, considered that a fair (in Japanese eyes
a generous) offer had not been received in the spirit in which it had been made;
that the Chinese, instead of meeting the offer of cooperation, were construing it
as a sign of weakness and endeavoring to take advantage of the supposed weak-
ness. The whole Japanese "overseas" community in Manchuria the ^ military in
the lead, but with the agreement of probably the majority of the civilians began
to agitate for the abandonment of the "policy of conciliation and cooperation
and the revival of a "positive" policy. Tension between Chinese and Japanese
increased, and the "Nakamura incident" the killing of a Japanese officer travel-
ing in the hinterland gave the Manchurian Japanese material for renewed agita-
tion in Japan. Up to this point there was a certain similarity with the conditions
preceding the break between Chinese and Russians in 1929.* with the difference
that the Chinese had been obstructive rather than aggressive and the Japanese
more resistant than the Russians.

After this point had been reached, the Chinese began to yield over the Naka-
mura incident but too late. Feeling in Japan had already been worked up to the
point of genuine public clamor that "something be done," in spite of the fact

SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION

lowed a better understanding in regard to Manchuria, wl
the quiescence of Russian policy gave Japan a margin
conciliating China. Thus the old Japanese policy of op
ing the construction of Chinese railways which might im
the commanding position of the South Manchuria Rail
was very considerably modified. The Chinese were actt
assisted in the building of some of these lines, with Japa
capital and material, while Japan acquiesced in the const
tion of others.

The apparent recession of both Japan and Russia was
lowed up with great eagerness, but the real strength of
foreign nations was misjudged. The pressure of Chinese
pansion was lacking in coordinated policy; opportunism
allowed to go too far, and the enthusiasts overreached tl
selves, forcing Russia to take a firmer stand. In the up*
the Chinese "forward policy" collapsed, in a manner ha
to be understood except in the light of the inherent neg;
characteristics of Chinese expansionism that have already 1
discussed. It is at least open to argument that the three }
in which the forward policy reached a peak in Manch
represented an aberration from the historically rooted r
trend of Manchurian colonization; for a comparatively trii
display of determination on the part of Russia was enc
to check the Chinese forward policy with startling eifec
ness. Not only did the forward policy fail alarmingly, b
strong reaction set in at once, with a return to the old empl
on the "inward-facing" characteristics of the old "reservi
The immediate results of the revelation of real danga
the northern frontier was a strong assertion of the import;

that the Government wished to settle this aFai^-and other questions outstand
with as much decorum as possible. Consequently, on the occurrence of an e
an "outrage'* on the Japanese railway which the Chinese accuse the Jai
o having manufactured the Japanese military forces in Manchuria struck,
out waiting for authority from Japan, and with paralyzing effect.

204 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

of the southern frontier; and at the moment the chief concern
of Manchuria is no longer the outer frontiers, but once more
the important option of authority which it holds in the affairs

of China. 3

Even at the height of the boom, when every form of immi-
gration was modified as far as possible in favor of speed and
general expansion, the Shantung tradition retained to a nota-
ble degree its own character and quality. It is extraordinary
how many Shantung families, even the most destitute, forced
out of Shantung by disastrous necessity, without the possi-
bility of making definite plans, have yet a knowledge of
where they want to go and what they can expect when they
get there. Inevitably, while opportunities of individual choice
were smothered by the rush of numbers, they became increas-
ingly at the disposal of the "big interests"; but even when
submitting to the manipulations of the great land agencies
the Shantung family retains enough individual purpose to
edge its way persistently toward a place where "neighbors"
of the old home are already established. Time and again
the same story can be heard from a Shantung family, starv-
ing and dependent on charity, but working toward a known
goal: "If we can reach such-and-such a place, we have people
we know."

One of the most exclusive fields of Shantung settlement
is along the lower Sungari, from below Sanhsing to the Amur.
In this region there is not only an overwhelming general pre-
ponderance of Shantung people, on the land and in the towns ;
but in district after district there is to be found a remarkable
proportion of people from the same county in Shantung.

8 This remained true up to the moment when the Japanese forced the issue
of the Manchurian policy toward Japan. On the whole the Chinese in Manchuria
were much more obstructive and non-cooperative in their Japanese policy than
aggressive; the active attention of the Manchurian Government being preoccupied
with affairs in China proper.

SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION 205

This holds for merchants and exploiting groups as well as for
peasants. It indicates that the local "big men" shared in ma-
nipulating the flood of migration, guiding toward the in-
terests in which they participated a supply of settlers in whom
they had also an interest.

The adventurer and the forerunner, the single men coming
without their families, are as dependent on this linkage as
are the family groups. The commonest explanation given
by the solitary immigrant is chao jen, "looking for a man."
The man may be a relative, or somebody linked by old group
obligations to the impoverished newcomer. Whatever the
linkage, the raw immigrant knows not only the name and
connections of the man he is seeking, but the place where
he is established or was last known to be. Even if he has
moved, and both men are illiterate and unable to communi-
cate, the newcomer is certain of finding his man so long as he
works through the reticulation of Shantung men and Shan-
tung interests. When the man is found, the procedure exem-
plifies the whole method of graduated manceuver. The es-
tablished man seeks out someone with whom he has a con-
nection, and finds work for the newcomer, and the three
then form a minute complex of triple interdependence and
obligation. The newcomer, finding his feet and gradually
establishing fresh connections, may work away from the origi-
nal point of lodgment; but the web of mutual dependence
and diffused responsibility not each for himself, but each
as a member of his group is never wholly broken. It is
the same indefinite but tensile web that links not only
peasant with townsman and artisan with capitalist, but
merchant with official and bandit with soldier, and even
limits, according to time and occasion, the sphere within
which the bandit works and, sometimes, his choice of vic-
tim.

206 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

Even when the Shantung man has arrived with a mob of
refugees, and finds himself placed willy-nilly on a land hold-
ing under the control of some large enterprise, he struggles
to escape the absolute authority of the "interests." A man
may give up one holding and move to another, with no evi-
dent difference in status or real economic freedom, and for
no reason whatever, except that he had been put on one hold-
ing, but was able to negotiate the second. It frequently hap-
pens, not only with Shantung men but even with the com-
paratively helpless men from other provinces, that the settler
absconds from the holding allotted to him in a scheme, and
sets up for himself as a squatter on land not occupied, but
already privately owned. He does not know the owner, and
to all appearances has wantonly put himself at a disad-
vantage.

In practice, however, he has improved his standing. The
uninvited squatter has a social position of tacitly recognized
social value. It is not that he has any legal "squatter's rights,"
for he is an intruder on land already owned and registered;
but public opinion is against the landlord who would sum-
marily evict a man already established, on the strength of
a mere legal theory. He must compromise with the practical
fact that the man is there. In the Chinese conception of re-
sponsibility a fact that has happened is of more importance
than the motives or actions that led up to it. Moreover, he
has improved the land, not only by farming it, but because
his mere presence has enhanced the value of neighboring
land, since the average "pioneer" abhors the wilderness but
is comforted by the presence of people who are already es-
tablished. The squatter, then, has the strong advantage of
simply being there, and the supplementary advantage of
having contributed to the value of the land; while the owner
for his part has the advantage for this also is an advantage,

SOLDIERS, OPIUM AND COLONIZATION 207

and no small one of not being responsible for having put
him there. Consequently, it is easy to come to terms*

One major fact relating to the importance of the Shantung
element in Manchuria is probably not generally recognized;
the part played by Shantung men in military affairs. The
soldiers, like the settlers, are linked by an unbroken tradition
with the earliest Manchu days, when Shantung men filled
the Chinese Banners of the Manchu army. It is a common-
place remark in Peking at periods when the old capital is
occupied by Manchurian troops, that they "are just like the
Manchus when they first came in" that is, like the early
Manchu and Chinese Bannermen of traditional memory.
Yet a very large proportion of these troops have acquired their
"Manchurian" manners and character in only a few years
in Manchuria; for in the Manchurian armies the Manchuria-
born men are at least equaled and probably outnumbered
by non-Manchurian-born Chinese, among whom the Shan-
tung men are the most important. The recruiting of Shan-
tung troops is a parallel to the recruiting of Shantung settlers.
Just as the "old hand," seasonal laborer or settler, returns to
Shantung to bring back men that he knows to a country
that he has learned to know, so the trusted old soldier or non-
commissioned officer returns to Shantung, with money fur-
nished by his commander, to find recruits. He pays a bounty
for each recruit, and this method is frankly called "buying
soldiers." The new men are placed in the ranks with sea-
soned troops, among whom they find many from their own
district in Shantung, and in a year or two are thoroughly
"Manchurian" in attitude.

This association with the army is of great importance, for
in an era of civil war promotion from the ranks is rapid
and common. Similarly, the ultimate measure of an official's
importance is the measure of his military connections and

208 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

backing. There is thus inevitably a large proportion of men
of Shantung birth or extraction among important civil and
military officials, and these men, when looking for opportuni-
ties of investment and exploitation, naturally turn to Shan-
tung land holders, merchants and industrialists. The army,
the administration and the great moneyed interests being,
to a great extent, different spheres of activity of the same
controlling group, it is common to find that the different sub-
groups are closely linked by exchanges of appointments and
influence among the leaders; and that these private alliances
are confirmed by intermarriage among the controlling fami-
lies. Thus the Shantung element ramifies through the whole
economy and social structure of Manchuria. The Shantung
town merchant or industrialist of importance will be found
to have an elaborate reticulation of alliances, extending to
civil and military officials, holders of great estates tenanted
by Shantung farmers, and so on all Shantung men or local
men associated by marriage with the Shantung group.

Moreover, in spite of the sufferings that Shantung province
has gone through, every comparatively safe place in Shan-
tung has its prosperous homes of leisured people who live
on the income of fortunes made in Manchuria, or on incomes
remitted by relatives in Manchuria. If conditions in Shan-
tung improve, the numbers of successful Shantung men re-
turning from Manchuria will increase. In the meantime, not
a little of the money made in Manchuria is reinvested by buy-
ing up land at cheap prices during famines in Shantung.

CHAPTER IX

REFUGEES, FRONTIERSMEN AND BANDITS
REFUGEE COLONIZATION

THE colonization of waste land in Manchuria by refugees
from famine regions and overpopulated regions in China
is almost entirely a phenomenon of railway exploitation. So
far as the natural pressure of population within China had
an effect in promoting emigration before the period of West-
ern impact, it worked through the old Shantung type of mi-
gration, and the spreading expansion of border communities
along the fringe of the age-old "reservoir." In the first place,
there was the difficulty of escaping on foot or with animal
transport only from a famine region, and of passing through
regions poor in cash and food reserves and unable to support
refugees on their way to territories suitable for colonization.
In the second place, there was the extreme traditional repug-
nance toward migration and the stigma of despair and defeat
attached to the permanent abandonment of the ancient home.
In the third place, there was the special fear and dislike of
all the "barbarian" country north of the Great Wall the re-
gion of defense and fear, not of advance and hope. Thus along
the whole land frontier it was exceptional to find any spread
of Chinese colonists except such as was effected by specific or-
der, as at strategic points like Jehol and Suiyiian.

The border population itself did tend to expand northward.
The men of this population had a tradition and method of
their own; but even so their expansion was a "spread" in

209

2ZO MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

character, lacking drive and the ambition of conquest. They
were prepared to sacrifice Chinese characteristics and stand-
ards by "turning Mongol" whenever it was expedient. They
moved forward tentatively when conscious of a strong China
behind them, but withdrew hastily or "turned Mongol" com-
pletely when the government weakened and the old forces
of the "reservoir" reasserted themselves. For comparatively
large numbers, bringing a strong, definitely Chinese impact
to bear on a comparatively short front, we have to look to
the Shantung type of migration, where the direct sea passage
and the possibility of quick return broke down to a certain
extent the "irrevocable sentence of exile" associations of emi-
gration from non-frontier China.

The development of railways modified the old conditions
in a remarkable way. Refugees could be transported over
great distances in a very short time, and brought direct to
regions that needed colonists. Rail transport disposed alto-
gether of the inert resistance to the passage of emigrants that
had been offered by intervening territory thickly populated
and not adapted to accommodate even a temporary influx of
migrating strangers. Railways, moreover, quite as much as
the acquisitions of Western armament, destroyed the old mili-
tary ascendancy of such "reservoir" people as the Mongols.
Under the immemorial conditions when there was no appre-
ciable difference in armament between Chinese and barba-
rians, it needed a very large military effort on the part of the
Chinese to confirm the conquest of very narrow strips of ter-
ritory. The barbarians, on the other hand, could raid into
and "hold down" comparatively wide settled Chinese regions;
though they could not convert these regions entirely to their
own social code. Manchus, Mongols and the Central Asian
tribes, traditionally able to campaign without fixed bases and
heavy transport (especially transport of food) and accus-

REFUGEES, FRONTIERSMEN, BANDITS 211

tomcd to warfare in terms of rapid mobility over great dis-
tances, and to quick apprehension of the topography even of
unknown country, offered a military problem as difficult and
expensive to deal with as that which confronts the British
on the Northwest Frontier of India. The Chinese military
tradition, that of a land-fast peasantry, demanded a solid front
in battle and the use of large numbers of men who could
see and hear one another all the time; together with food and
transport supplied from the rear in other words, the basic
requirements of infantry warfare throughout history. Even
at the present time, Chinese troops with superior arms can-
not operate effectively against Mongols, in Mongol country,
without very great superiority in numbers; because there is
no fixed population to conquer, and no opportunity to assert
their superiority in pitched battles. In times past, the most
effective method of counteracting the Mongol strategy of
raiding attacks and quick movement over long distances was
the encouragement of lamaism and lama monasteries. The
great, wealthy monasteries did to a certain extent tend to
make the Mongols land fast, or at least vulnerable at fixed
points, and to impair their essential tradition.

Railways clinched the decision. A line of railway is equiva-
lent to a fixed base. It gives to troops the comfort of a fixed
line to fall back on, and it makes possible the rapid concentra-
tion of forces, thus tending to restore the balance of mobility.
Wherever a region of frontier colonization is served by a
railway, there is no longer any doubt of the ascendancy of
Chinese over tribesmen. Road transport by motor, the most
modern development in Manchuria (aviation not yet hav-
ing reached the practical stage), enormously increases the
range of operation from a railway base, and has been used
with great effectiveness in the Hsingan Colonization Project,
in Western Fengtien (Liaoning) province, where a great

212 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

stretch of land is being taken over from the Mongols and
settled by civilians and troops together. In this region, the
Mongols are held down by military outposts, linked by motor
transport, while a railway is being built which will perma-
nently decide the matter.

The "reservoir" tradition has thus been so far modified that
it is no longer imperative for the frontiersman, if he is within
reach of a railway, to acquire a special technique of frontier
life, or to "turn Mongol" in any important degree. The con-
tinuance of the "reservoir" tradition now depends essentially
on the fact that the expanding Chinese population, in spite
of its new advantages, still maintains the social outlook and
regional orientation bred under the old conditions. Given,
therefore, the wealth of a boom of colonization in the "reser-
voir" and the tradition of the superiority of success in China
over success on the frontier, it is just as easy for the railways
to bring the increasing power of the frontier to bear on China
as it is for them to transport fresh colonists to the frontier.

The true frontier tradition in Manchuria was always con-
fined to a comparatively small and socially specialized popu-
lation, as it was also in America: and the advent of the rail-
way is killing the true frontier tradition, as it killed it also in
America. There is a pious fiction in America that the great
post-Civil War railway and industrial "reconstruction," and
the westward spread of population, carried on the old pioneer
tradition and that we all have a pioneer heritage in our blood.
That fiction performs a certain service, in that it transvalues
otherwise non-American values in our society; the manipula-
tion of herds of immigrants, as a form of big business, we call
by convention a triumphal march, in order to preserve the
spirit of "onward and upward" which animates the expan-
sionist drive in the American tradition. In reality, the later
expansion in America was a secondary phenomenon, dis-

REFUGEES, FRONTIERSMEN, BANDITS 213

tinct from the original expansion of the wilderness pioneers.
It was controlled in the main by "big interests" which satis-
fied the demands of the new industrialism and at the same
time provided traffic for the vast new transport systems which,
in America then as in Manchuria now, were the hinge on
which turned the change to a new era.

The present colonization of Manchuria equally represents
a secondary stage, which both supersedes and destroys the
primary stage. It is equally dominated by "big interests,"
and is equally dependent on a cheap supply of docile immi-
grants. The primary stage differed from the early period
of the great colonizing movements of Western nations iix
that it provided no outlet for discontented minorities. In
China also there are discontented minorities; but coming as
they do within the orbit of Chinese civilization, in spite of
being dissenters, they tend to work out their differences on
the spot, not to migrate for the purpose of setting up a new
dispensation in the wilderness. The secondary stage is closer
to that of the West; for the migration settles no fundamental
issues within the civilization itself, and the migrants are
anything but arbiters, or even champions of their own des-
tiny: and certainly migration to Manchuria, however great
the numbers involved, no more solves the problems of popu-
lation pressure in China than the transport of immigrants
to America solved the population problems of Europe. Nor
has the refugee colonist in Manchuria any more option of
pursuing the "pioneer tradition" than had the gangs of
Italians laboring on railways to cross the Rockies and open
America's "last frontier," or the Poles and Bohemians fed
into America's coal mines and steel mills. The fact that
the expansion into Manchuria is as yet predominantly agricul-
tural gives a certain pioneering color to the present great
population movement; but the fact that practically all the

214 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

land open to colonization is already privately owned by the
"big interests," who dominate the economics of the country
as effectively as the "big interests" in the days of unrestricted
immigration into America, determines the major colonization
phenomena of Manchuria.

The typical refugee colonist is a man who leaves his home
in despair and unwillingly, for a destination which he does
not choose but which is appointed for him by a relief organiza-
tion or the recruiting agent of a landholder in Manchuria.
He is carried by rail from his old home all the way through
and past the old frontier territory to his destination, at a
speed which precludes his learning anything of the old fron-
tier spirit or methods. When he reaches the destination, he
is put on the land on terms in which he himself has the
minimum of choice. This usually means rental terms as
high as forty to sixty per cent of the yearly crop. Even if the
terms make rental purchase possible, the interest charged for
equipment and initial financing during the settlement years
makes it extremely difficult for him to succeed in becoming
the owner of land with a clear title : and even if he does succeed
in becoming a farmer with land of his own, he has to deal
with a grain market and a transport system which are thor-
oughly under the control of great vested interests. 1

In the outlying districts, in order to hold the colonists on
the land at all, and keep them from drifting back to China
or beyond the reach of organized control to become squatters,
terms are granted which mean that for at least a generation
the farmer will eat more and live better than he did in China.
Basically, however, the economic and social system is not
one built up in Manchuria the time is past for that; the

1 Compare the situation of the great numbers of "crop-sharers** or tenant-
farmers in America, whose fundamental economic impotence is revealed in any
time of general agricultural depression.

REFUGEES, FRONTIERSMEN, BANDITS 215

pace is too fast, and such societies can only be found in the
heart of the old "reservoir" country but one imported from
China. This means that, apart from the political bias imparted
by the regional feeling, and the disruptive effect of West-
ernization, the new population, as it grows, tends to repro-
duce in full the situation as it is in China, with the same prob-
lems of over-population, pauperization, economic bondage
to the land and landholders and insufficient margins of food
reserve and financial security.

The most favorable terms of all are offered in regions
which are at the same time the frontier of Chinese settlement,
and adjacent to an international frontier that is, to Russia.
Where the Mongols are still powerful, settlement on the edge
of Mongol territory is also encouraged on specially favorable
terms. The setback suffered by the Chinese as a result of the
Chinese Eastern Railway dispute, and the facile military suc-
cesses of the Russians, caused a feeling of the greatest uncer-
tainty all along the frontier. As a result, this is the last region
in which colonists are anxious to settle of their own accord.
Obviously, however, from the official point of view, the settle-
ment of at least a screen of Chinese colonists all along the
Amur frontier is a measure of imperative importance; while
the great landholders are willing to give good terms in order
to get their land opened at all. The favorable terms offered in
this region are roughly as follows, and they are arrived at
by cooperation between the provincial authorities and the
landowners it being understood that the greatest land hold-
ers are likely to be officials themselves, or related by blood or
marriage to officials. The terms differ a good deal in Kirin and
Heilungchiang, the Kirin Government being more liberal
and progressive, on the whole.

Villages are marked out at convenient distances in abso-
lutely virgin, uninhabited country, usually from three to six

216 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

in a day's journey of twenty-five to thirty miles. Building
timber is transported to these sites, in advance. This is likely
to be done or supervised by a special Agricultural Bureau,
centered in the nearest county town, and linked by organiza-
tion both with the local chamber of commerce and the pro-
vincial authorities. Colonists are recruited either by agents
of the land holders themselves, or by "old-timers" (usually
Shantung men) who, having gained experience as laborers,
market gardeners or small tenant farmers, are prepared to
take up land on permanent tenure, and have gone back
to Shantung to fetch relatives, friends and neighbors in
order to form a congenial village nucleus. When the settlers
arrive, they build their own houses, using the timber pro-
vided, and for bricks digging out earth themselves, press-
ing it in wooden frames and drying it in the sun to make
adobe.

Settling down, and perhaps the breaking of a little soil,
takes up the first short season. Then they hibernate for the
first winter, living on provisions supplied under the settle-
ment scheme. With the next thaw and the first full plow-
ing season using draught cattle and plows provided for
them ach head of a family selects what land he likes, near
the village, and all plow as much as they can. They may not
even know whose is the soil they plow. Virgin soil is often
simply plowed and harrowed, to break up the sod, without
planting; but sometimes a rough crop of beans is planted.
I believe that the slowness of getting cultivation started is
partly due to the poor quality of the plows, which do not bite
deep. The top sod has first to be turned over, harrowed and
left to disintegrate. A second plowing, in the following year,
then gives the required depth. Cultivation is based on a
system of deep furrows and high ridges, which are main-
tained year after year. They are renewed in the spring by light

REFUGEES, FRONTIERSMEN, BANDITS 217

plowing in the same old furrows, while the ridges are kept
up during the season by hand cultivation with hoes.

In any case the third season (the second of plowing) pro-
duces a crop; and at the same time extra land can be broken.
By this time, usually, the country has been "opened" enough
for a reckoning. The actual landowners or their agents then
arrive. The land is all remeasured, and owner and settler
negotiate a partition, on the basis of six parts to the farmer
(without purchase price) and four parts to the owner (with-
out charge for plowing). It may happen that a farmer finds
he has been plowing for several owners; but most of the
original land grants were so large that he will find he has
only one owner to deal with. The site of the village itself is
deducted from the reckoning, the landowners among them-
selves contributing its value. The title deeds for the farmer's
land are then made over to him; and as for the four parts
which revert to the original owner, he may rent or sell them
as he pleases.

This method contrasts well with the standard in more de-
veloped regions, where from the beginning the settler is likely
to find himself a tenant, paying a rental of from forty to
sixty per cent of the crop, with little chance of acquiring own-
ership. Under these special terms the settler becomes a land-
owner on a scale that would require a generation of toil,
and a lot of good luck as well, in his native province. The
original owner is left with forty per cent of his land; but this
forty per cent, by virtue of having been opened, is worth the
whole of the original undeveloped holding. Often the origi-
nal landowner remains the largest individual land holder of
the region, and its most important capitalist.

The new peasant-proprietor is not subject to land tax until
the seventh year. From the fourth year to the seventh year, in-
clusive, he pays off by installments the capital cost of the

2x8 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

building material, equipment, livestock, food supplies and so
forth, with which he had been supplied in advance. There-
after he pays ordinary land tax, police dues and so forth.
"You are well off here," I said to one such man; "enough
people to open the land, but plenty of land for expansion. Not
too many people and too little land, like Shantung." "Ha!"
he replied, contentedly; "you wait a couple of generations!
We'll be running around like ants!" And indeed, judging
from the visible rate of development in many regions where
settlement has once taken hold, I think that in two genera-
tions many of the new settlements of to-day will be approxi-
mating to agricultural districts generally in North China, in
size of farms and ratio of land tax to capital value. A Liao-
ning province man, whom I met in Heilungchiang, told me
that in districts of Heilungchiang developed within the last
thirty years, taxation was much lighter than in Liaoning, the
"oldest" province. Taxation of undeveloped land in Heilung-
chiang, he said, was even lighter; not only is the tax light in
itself, but it is assessed on only an estimated percentage of
the land. The tax is made lighter yet by the fact that a larger,
more generous measure is used for undeveloped land. In the
"oldest" parts of Liaoning, he said, not only is the tax higher
and the measure smaller, but the measurement is made to
include even ponds and rough patches of irreclaimable land,
which in Heilungchiang are simply "thrown in," without
being measured.

Incidentally, the power of the big interests is illustrated by
the custom of taxing undeveloped land very lightly. Thus
there is no pressure on the great land holders, forcing them to
sell or develop; only when, at their convenience, they have
found settlers, is the tax increased, and it can then be taken
out of the value developed by the settlers.

The refugee colonists, who are now numerically the most
important, and whose importance has forced down the old

REFUGEES, FRONTIERSMEN, BANDITS 219

standards of the Shantung migrants, owing to the fact that
Shantung in recent years has suffered as heavily as any other
province, illustrate all the most "negative" characteristics of
so-called "pioneer" colonization when undertaken by a so-,
ciety of advanced civilization. Being quite unable to fend
for themselves, they are poor material to begin with. Being
emigrants by necessity only, they have not the mental atti-
tude which facilitates adaptation. Indeed, they are inclined
to resent everything in food, climate, housing and so forth
that is not "like home"; even though, with properly directed
energy, the environment might be made better than home.
Moreover ironic though this may seem the relief projects
and colonization projects which are most efficiently run and
treat the refugees best have the most trouble with them. This
is largely because of the peasant's interpretation of "respon-
sibility" "you have saved me, therefore you are responsible
for my being alive an d for my -future; and now, what are you
going to do about it?" Relief of the old type was purely de-
fensive. Grain was issued from the local state granaries, and
taxes were remitted; if the grain gave out, the people died.
That type of relief has gone. The new, "dynamic" type,
with its overtones of expansion and the creation of new
wealth, is essentially a new concept, and the reaction of the
conservative, simple-minded peasant tends to be: "You must
be getting more out of this than I am. Anyhow, this is not my
idea. I am not responsible for being saved. You are respon-
sible for bringing me here. Now you ought to do something
more for me."

Consequently the losses by desertion from relief-coloniza-
tion projects are very high. The landowners consider that the
settlers are ungrateful, and are on the whole glad to get rid
of those who are not docile, although the rate of develop-
ment is slowed down. The settlers very soon find out that
they have in fact been brought out largely for the benefit

220 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

of vested interests in need of cheap labor. Consequently, the
most capable of them are the most likely to desert. From this
it might appear that the only people who stay on the land are
the least enterprising and energetic. This is not wholly true;
for some of those who abscond do in fact settle on the land,
often as squatters, in regions not yet being systematically colo-
nized, where later they can make their own terms with the
landowners.

In order to minimize this type of defection, organized colo-
nization projects endeavor to secure a high proportion of
married settlers with children. Even this admirable measure,
however, does not wholly obviate the loss. Only too often,
the family which is able to hang together at all is one which
has enough resources of its own, or ability among its mem-
bers, to support itself and eventually find its way home again,
without going to the dreaded extreme of migrating to Man-
churia. On the other hand, many desperate people, in order
to secure cheap transport to Manchuria, band themselves
hastily into fictitious families a man and a woman who
are not married, gathering up several children not their own
and applying for relief as a family. When such a group is
placed on the land, very little discontent is enough to make
the man abandon his adventitious family; especially if he
has endeavored to turn them back on the authorities, and been
refused. He may well abandon them; he has reached Man-
churia, there is work to be had, or he can at a pinch join the
army or turn bandit. If he wants to work his way back to his
native province, he can do so more easily without his follow-
ing. Losses from this kind of defection, and similar causes,
may run very high in the first year or two of a colonization
project; sometimes, I believe, as high as forty per cent. I have
heard higher figures quoted locally in such regions; but of
course, no accurate statistics are available.

REFUGEES, FRONTIERSMEN, BANDITS 221

When women are thus deserted, they do not necessarily
starve. Owing to the great shortage of women, particularly
on the fringes of settlement, the ordinarily strict Chinese
standards are relaxed during the settling-down years of a new
population, and almost any woman who has any qualities to
recommend her can form a fresh alliance often with a man
who has already begun to prosper. Girl children even are
popular, and can find homes, because when they grow up
their marriage-settlements will be profitable. In China proper
a son is more valuable; girls are in such plenty that, unless
a family is already well-to-do, it is hard to marry off a daugh-
ter advantageously. The son stays in the family and his earn-
ings contribute to it, while a daughter, at marriage, "goes out
of the family." In Manchuria, on the other hand, women are
so scarce that if a daughter is at all personable there will be
many bids for her hand, and the parents can choose a son-
in-law on terms advantageous to themselves.

Nor is the case of a young boy, when a refugee family or
pseudo-family has broken up, too desperate. Once a boy is
past his infancy he can earn a living. Perhaps the greatest
difficulty, in practice, is that an adopted son tends to desert his
adoptive parents if they do not prosper, so soon as he is able
to fend for himself.

COLONISTS BY BIRTH AND TRADITION

One other important type of frontier settlement has yet
to be considered that of the secondary migrants. These are
men with families; men whose forebears have been in Man-
churia for several generations and who derive from the old
pre-railway times of the drifting spread into Manchuria.
They form a special class among the old frontier or "reser-
voir" population, functioning as developers of agricultural

222 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

land, in close touch with the exploitation undertaken by of-
ficials. They are chiefly to be found in lands taken over from
the Mongols, but they differ from the first-line frontiersmen
of the old Mongol "reservoir" in that they are definitely not
a "mixed class"; they rarely have Mongol blood, and jarely
speak Mongol At the same time they have a strong "reser-
voir" color; they are not land fast; they tend always to move
forward, and their special knowledge is the knowledge of
how to break and develop raw land. Naturally, they are of the
greatest value in extending the frontiers of Chinese occupa-
tion, and are looked on with high favor by the officials con-
cerned with border expansion. They form an admirable core
for any project of new colonization; the pity is that owing to
the pace of modern colonization brought about by railway
construction their numbers cannot be multiplied fast enough
to keep up with the opening of suitable new territories.

They are the only settlers who, as a class, have capital, which
they raise by selling out the land which they have previously
developed and enhanced in value, in order to move on to new
land. Their careers are thus worked out in terms of con-
tinuous generations, not of a single lifetime. The land which
their fathers or grandfathers took up on the edge of Mongol
territory has doubled and trebled in value through the ar-
rival of later colonists and the growth of communications and
markets. They themselves have a personal or family back-
ground of "raw* land. Therefore they capitalize their old
holdings and move on. They know the working of frontier
methods and the ways of frontier officials ; and they know that
as they prosper they increase their prospects of having sons
graduate into the ranks of the real controlling classes the of-
ficials and the "big interests." Indeed, patriarchs of such
groups often have a semi-official standing and are frequently
consulted by the officials.

Settlers of this type tend to move as communities, and will

REFUGEES, FRONTIERSMEN, BANDITS 223

be found in groups all of whom lived in the same old villages
and benefited by their loose group and class association in bar-
gaining for the new lands and founding the new villages.
They continue to benefit by this group organization, forming
a subsection of the new community as a whole. They act in
conjunction in matters of policy, and among themselves they
have their own gradations of leaders and followers. Their
land operations are often complicated, owing to differences in
value between old lands and new. Often they will even settle
for a generation and more on comparatively poor land, wait-
ing until better regions are expropriated from the Mongols.
Thus there is a long stretch of land between Ssup'ingkai and
T'aonan in Western Fengtien (Liaoning), filled with aban-
doned villages, whose inhabitants have moved on west of
T'aonan or southwest toward K'ailu. West and northwest of
T'aonan can also be found contingents of secondary migrants
from the Petuna region who, with the weakening and with-
drawal of the Mongols have overpassed the inferior lands
between their old homes and their new settlements; although
actually their new lands are often not so rich as the fields they
formerly owned. They have sold out good land, moved across
poor land, and settled in land of medium grade, having nicely
calculated the profits to be made by selling out developed
land, buying at least three times the acreage of undeveloped
land, and opening it to cultivation in order to clear a further
profit.

This type of settler is far less conspicuous in non-Mongol
regions, because there, the land not being "Mongol" but "pub-
lic," the settler was able in the past to settle as a squatter on
land chosen for a permanent home, and to arrange terms
of tenantry or purchase when the land was eventually re-
leased for settlement and passed into private ownership.

The "reservoir"-bred, secondary migrant and the semi-out-
law opium-growing settler are probably the nearest in tradi-

224 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

tion and feeling to the old-style Western pioneer; at least to
the early, pre-railway American pioneer and, like the early
Western pioneers, they are the survivors of an older order.
They cannot stand the pace of a machine-grounded econ-
omy; their style of life demands a training too long drawn-
out, and too close a linkage of tradition-informed generations.

It is noteworthy, however, that the "pioneer" in one of the
oldest and most typical Western senses of the word the
"lonely settler" is almost unheard-of. This is of significant
interest because it means that the quest for loneliness, the
hunger for an empty land in which a man can express his own
starkest individuality, are psychological characteristics of an
individualism that is not congruent with the Chinese tradition
and the Chinese civilization. The farthest-outlying frontiers-
man forms for himself a group-connection by attaching him-
self to Mongols, Manchus or other non-Chinese tribes; the
second-line frontiersman moves forward as part of a group;
the squatter is always found as an extension of the group
never wholly removed.

The general instinct running through society is not to get
away from the old order, nor to found any new order, but
merely to extend the old order, and to reproduce it as fast as
possible. Although there are outlaw communities, there are
no communities of revolt; no rebellious minorities that have
migrated from the old home in order to get away from an un-
sympathetic majority, and founded new communities in or-
der to be independent.

THE BANDIT AS FRONTIERSMAN

Banditry is one of the great plagues of modern China, and
is commonly said to be chiefly due to civil war, famine and
desperation. Yet in Manchuria also banditry is endemic. If,

REFUGEES, FRONTIERSMEN, BANDITS 225

then, banditry has not been eliminated in Manchuria, where
food and work are plentiful and where the population is prac-
tically free from the effects of civil war, how is it ever to be
eliminated? The answer is that the banditry of Manchuria
is essentially a "frontier" banditry, organically different from
the banditry of social disintegration and despair which char-
acterizes so much of China proper.

The axiom that "the more soldiers the more bandits,"
though heard all over Manchuria, does not indicate a pecu-
liarity of Manchurian conditions. On the contrary, it points
to a condition of over-militarization, from which Manchuria
does not suffer so badly as any equivalent area of China proper,
under which the soldier, becoming the master, not the protec-
tor of society, takes to banditry and soldiering alternately, ac-
cording to the current chances of profit and promotion. This
type of downright destructiveness is much more "sophisti-
cated" than the old Manchurian banditry, is not so local in
its connections, and is as modern as the phenomena of mass-
colonization. Like modern colonization, it tends to obliterate
antecedent conditions, while occasionally preserving certain
elements of the antecedent tradition.

The Manchurian bandit tends very strongly to adhere to
a group; and to a group which is identified with a particular
region. There are no more solitary bandits than there are
solitary settlers; there are bands of robbers and occasional
footpads, who hardly count as bandits. Single desperadoes,
or very small bands of two or three wandering outlaws, of
the kind that, in the history of the American frontier, are
far more typical than the group, are almost non-existent.
In fact the bandit not only seeks the comfort of plurality;
he likes to belong to an organic body, with a recognizable
place in the community. His chief comfort is that, through
various affiliations, there is always a degree of communication

226 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

between the outlaw community and the law-abiding com-
munity. This explains the fact that when a countryside is
rid of bandits, the cleaning-up is normally accomplished
by negotiation, only exceptionally by the shock of con-
flict.

Bandits are most commonly disposed of by enlisting them in
the troops or police, or, not uncommonly, by betrayal and
massacre; but even betrayal and massacre are essentially the
results of negotiation, not of outright warfare. Violence, it is
true, is common in fact, general all over Manchuria; but it
is sporadic, spontaneous and undirected. The collective or-
ganized violence of the vigilante is, in my experience, un-
known. Village and regional self-defense corps are quite fre-
quently formed, and maintain on the whole better protection
than ordinary police or regular troops; but this is because
the self-defense corps and the bandits are very well known to
each other. They almost never fight it out to a finish; on
the contrary, a stalemate arises and the bandits avoid the or-
ganized villages, while the defense corps refrain from pur-
suing the bandits. Unfortunately for the villages thus de-
fended, the more efficient their local volunteer corps, the
more likely it is to be brought within the wider organization
of regular troops; whereupon outsiders break in to the
"racket," the local interest is handicapped, and the plague of
banditry begins again, because of the easy interchange of pro-
fession as between bandits and soldiers.

The older Manchurian banditry is not only regional, but is
obviously a phenomenon of the old "reservoir," and like all
"reservoir" activities has a recognizable historical derivation.
It was originally a by-product of the restrictions on Chinese
penetration into the "reservoir"; and this explains why nu-
merically there are always more Chinese among bandits than
Manchus or Mongols, and why, to the present day, China-

REFUGEES, FRONTIERSMEN, BANDITS 227

born Chinese (especially Shantung men) are rather more
common than Manchuria-born Chinese.

It has already been pointed out that "illegal" Chinese set-
tlers, under the Manchu rule, were in fact commonly al-
lowed to remain if they had really succeeded in establishing
themselves before being officially noticed. If, however, the
settlement could not be said to have taken root, and especially
if it encroached on the forest preserves, the Imperial Hunting
Grounds or the fringes of the sacred Ch'ang-pai-shan, it was
likely to be broken up, with the result that the evicted settlers
turned to banditry. Thus to the fringe of tolerated settlers
and the outer fringe of nominally illegal squatters, there was
added an outermost fringe of bandits, commonly based on
hidden villages as well as on camps. Obviously this bandit
fringe, and its representatives of the present day, must often
be indistinguishable from the lawless fringe of opium-growing
villages.

The bandits also drew recruits, and still draw them, from
gold prospectors, lumbermen, hunters and ginseng gatherers.
Owing to the ancient prejudice against private exploitation of
such natural resources as mines and forests, those who ex-
ploited them without a license granting a semi-official monop-
oly (which required a certain amount of capital and a social
standing high enough to allow familiarity with official cir-
cles) were always outside the law. Hunters and ginseng
gatherers were also perpetually on the outer edge of the law.
Ginseng was under a kind of imperial patronage, its collec-
tion and distribution being under official supervision. Indeed,
at one time it became so scarce that an effort was made to
conserve the supply by restricting collection. Naturally, the
resulting high prices tempted men to venture into the forests
without license. In much the same way sable hunters con-
tinually attempted to evade the yamen or collecting stations,

228 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

in order to dispose of their catch not as articles of tribute but
by sale, sables having become very scarce throughout Siberia
and Manchuria because they were demanded in tribute both
by the Russian Tsar and the Emperor in Peking.

Such pursuits as these were originally Manchu; but as the
Manchus became accustomed to living comfortably in their
villages, enjoying government subsidy and concerned with
securing official employment for their sons, more and more
liu win or unauthorized Chinese immigrants, disappointed
in the attempt to settle on the land, turned to the profitable oc-
cupations of the wilderness. The knowledge thus gained of
topography, routes and hiding places naturally aided them
when they took to banditry. Much of their way of life and
point of view has been passed on to the bandits of the present
day. It might seem strange, for instance, that a large propor-
tion of the modern bandits of the Kirin and Liaoning forest
belt are Shantung men, with no experience of forests prior to
their emigration to Manchuria. The explanation is that
through working at different lumber camps they have gained
a special knowledge of the region, and scraped an acquaint-
ance with the semi-lawless, practically ungoverned outermost
settlers, squatters and hunters. After a season of hard work,
lumbermen frequently gamble away and spend in dissipation
the whole of their pay, at the first little town reached. Unable
to return to Shantung, or to find congenial work in the off-
season, such men bolt back into the hills they have learned
to know so well, and from the wilderness make bandit raids
on highways and villages.

The significance of Manchurian banditry cannot be appre-
ciated without bearing in mind that very few men take to
the life of the outlaw for the sake of adventure and excite-
ment, though some do. There are more men of the naturally
wild and adventurous type in Manchuria than in any non-

REFUGEES, FRONTIERSMEN, BANDITS 229

frontier province of China, because the frontier tradition tends
to produce them, in spite of the peaceful counter-tradition of
the steady-going Chinese stock. Their numbers also are
augmented by escaped criminals and desperate characters.
Nevertheless a surprising proportion of them are men who
would naturally settle down to cultivate land or follow a
trade were it not for the difficulties in the way of private ex-
ploitation of the wilderness, the laws against the highly
profitable opium business and the difficulty of acquiring a
holding in the untenanted but privately owned wilderness,
without capital.

The result is that Manchurian bandits found more villages
probably than any outlaws in the world, and though lawless
are an effective advance-guard of normal settlement and ex-
ploitation. Almost no bandits are truly independent of bases
either in villages founded by themselves or dominated by
them because of their isolated position. Thus there is always
a certain amount of communication between bandit villages
and law-abiding villages, and it is almost always possible to
"reclaim" most of the population of a bandit region, as
normal administration is pushed forward into previously un-
administered country. The negotiations for "reclaiming"
bandits are often marred by subsequent treacherous massacre;
nevertheless, as has been said, negotiation and not outright
warfare is the normal method of reducing a bandit region
to order. It is as a result of such negotiations that so many
bandit leaders become transformed into military officers.
From the military career many of them achieve administrative
power; and thus it comes about quite naturally that some
of the ablest and most powerful officials in Manchuria are
men who got their first schooling in the ranks of the bandits.
When I was dining once with a general in whose territory the
bandits were an important initial problem, obstructing the

230 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

beginnings of peaceful development, one of his staff, a man
of the new school of national patriotism, referred to the
bandits as a pest that must be destroyed outright. The general
himself not by any means a man of bandit antecedents cor-
rected him, saying that bandits were by no means all "bad."
"It depends on how you treat them and use them," he said.
After a good deal of frontier experience, I understand per-
fectly well what he meant; for the bandit, properly under-
stood, is in some respects a valuable frontiersman and path-
finder.

The old banditry of Manchuria is recognizably divided into
several regional types. There is the opium banditry that has
already been discussed. There is the banditry of the central
region of Kirin and Liaoning. There is the banditry of the
Mongol frontier of Western Liaoning and Western Heilung-
chiang, and there is the banditry of the previously uninhab-
ited wildernesses of Northern Heilungchiang, which has a
somewhat milder counterpart in northernmost Kirin.

The banditry of the forested and hilly country of the cen-
tral region of Kirin and Liaoning is strongly colored by
"reservoir" traditions, and has an unbroken connection with
the old days when most of the bandits were Chinese who had
not succeeded in establishing tolerated settlements in the
Manchu "reservoir." Many of these bandits are still lumber-
men, hunters and ginseng gatherers by turns. With the in-
creased settlement and development of the region, however,
the days of the really big troops of bandits in this region are
passing.

The banditry of the Mongol frontier is peculiar in that
many Mongols are among the bandits. In strictly Mongol
territory, bandits are so rare that they may be said not to
exist at all. The Mongol population is as mobile as the bandits
themselves could be, and knows the country as well. Bandits

REFUGEES, FRONTIERSMEN, BANDITS 231

are far more afraid of Mongol levies than they are of Chinese
regular troops. Mongol banditry only breaks out on the fringe
of Chinese colonization, where numbers of Mongols, whose
pastures have been taken and who have not been properly
provided for either by the colonization officials or their own
princes, turn their hands against all men.

Pastoral Mongols do not like to live within less than a day's
ride of Chinese villages, partly because they are afraid of be-
ing governed and taxed, but chiefly because their livestock,
trespassing on fields, might be the cause of quarreling. It is
in this gap that the bandits range. They are recruited not
only from discontented Mongols, but from Chinese some
of them men who have given up trying to get land for them-
selves, some of them deserting soldiers, others young men
who have got on the wrong side of the law through quarrel-
ing or gambling. In addition to these, the most outlying set-
tlements frequently contribute a man each to the bandits, in
order to secure themselves from attack. The mere fact that
so many of the bandits are malcontents means that among
them are some of the most independent, able and vigorous
men of the region. Such men frequently see a quicker, though
more dangerous way to power and position through rising
to the command of bandits than through ordinary industry
or even ordinary enlistment in the army. If they can make
themselves formidable enough, there is always a price at
which they can negotiate a position on the right side of the
law. An ambition of this kind is, however, far more dan-
gerous for Mongols than for Chinese as, being outsiders, they
are much more likely to be treacherously killed in the process
of negotiation. A Mongol bandit is therefore a man who ex-
pects no other end than a violent death; consequently he is
a much more determined and dangerous fighter than the
ordinary bandit.

232 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

Such mixed groups of bandits attack only the Chinese,
unless they are desperate. The Chinese clannishness enables
them to play off one group against another getting informa-
tion or supplies from one village, and attacking others
whereas if they attacked one Mongol encampment, all the
others within reach would send out men against them; and,
not content with driving them off, they would push them
until it came to a fight.

While the Mongol element in these bands contributes mo-
bility, the Chinese element requires touch with fixed com-
munities. Thus they use the unoccupied no-man's-land to give
them freedom for manceuver, and from it raid in among the
thinly scattered outer villages. They frequently descend on
one outlying farm or settlement after another, for food and
shelter, and the general rule is that from the poorest people
they demand food and shelter but nothing else. The com-
monest end of such a band is that they are either enticed into
negotiation and killed, or else enlisted as a part of the re-
gional military establishment often with the title of anti-
bandit patrol. This comes about as their sphere of activity is
narrowed down by increasingly close settlement. They are
rarely driven out permanently while the country is not yet
thoroughly settled. It not infrequently happens that those
who have relations among the respectable succeed in making
terms, and even betray the outsiders who have no connections,
so that the "biggest" men are taken over while the others
are trapped and killed.

Where there is practically no clash of populations to foment
banditry, as in vast stretches of Northern Heilungchiang and
Kirin, banditry is largely a winter avocation of settlers in
thinly populated regions. The bandits of Heilungchiang have
a special reputation for savagery, and I should not be at all
surprised if this were the result of influences imparted in ear-

REFUGEES, FRONTIERSMEN, BANDITS 233

lier days when Heilungchiang was a place of exile for crimi-
nals and political offenders, many of whom subsequently es-
caped and took up banditry. In such regions, the farmers
themselves are often bandits, and prey on one another's base-
villages; though the highways provide most of their victims.
The winter season is long, and while numbers of people
then engage in the carting trade, hauling grain to market,
others are idle, for lack of subsidiary occupations like stock-
raising or home industries. Moreover winter is the season
of travel, the roads of packed snow being at their best. Ban-
ditry in Heilungchiang, until recently at least, had the repu-
tation of being often a kind of "racket," engaged in by people
who had relatives among the troops or petty officials, who
could protect them from being too seriously pursued. At any
rate it is certain that where the Sungari forms the boundary
between the provinces of Heilungchiang and Kirin (it being
possible to cross on the ice in winter) the common people
consider that the bandits of their own side are a nuisance, but
part of the natural social order and usually amenable to di-
plomacy and reasonable arrangement; while the bandits from
the other side of the river they loathe and dread.

The banditry of this region has one characteristic in com-
mon with that of the Mongol border; it is at its worst near the
fringes of settlement. Colonization has followed the main
lines of travel, leaving wide uninhabited stretches on either
side, which give the bandits room for dodging and hiding.

It is commonly held that banditry slows down the rate of
colonization. 2 This is perfectly true; but I do not think that it
is altogether an evil. While the bandits are themselves in a

2 One of the important economic effects of banditry is that over wick re-
gions transport by ox-cart is common, where horses would be more efficient,
and would be used, were it not that bandits leave oxen alone, but are in perpetual
need of horses as remounts. The introduction of motor transport is tending
to solve this problem.

234 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

sense active frontiersmen, continually pushing forward into
the wilderness, they do delay the period of intensive coloniza-
tion that comes after them. Banditry often expresses the feel-
ing of resentment that the true frontiersmen have against the
powerful interests which own great stretches of wilderness
land. The more they can make themselves feared, the better
chance they have, when the eventual period of negotiation
comes, of securing good terms from the great landholders on
whose land grants they have founded villages. While the
bandits themselves are taken into the army, their relatives get
a chance to take up land on much more favorable terms than
could be secured by refugees. Thus while they slow down
the rate of colonization, they tend to add to the quality of the
community, offsetting the poor "tone" of purely refugee colo-
nization, which tends to be too helpless and too much at the
mercy of a limited and over-powerful class, and can well
benefit by the tradition of independence and self -sufficiency
which the bandit element contributes.

The greatest danger of banditry in Manchuria, in fact, is
that the old indigenous banditry, with its occasional flashes of
the Robin Hood instinct, may be entirely overwhelmed by
the savagely destructive soldier-banditry that harries so many
thousand square miles of China proper. It is already true
that the common soldier has no great stomach for fighting
bandits. He would far rather come to a sensible arrangement
by which the bandits withdraw when the patrols come around,
and the patrols, as they make their rounds, do not look over
their shoulders at the bandits coming back. Even when, under
orders from above, it is necessary for the troops to make a
definite effort to clear a given territory, the private soldier
will often give the game away. He will have one signal by
groups of rifleshots which means "We are on patrol, but
nothing serious/ 5 and another which means "Look out ! We'll
fight you if we find you!" This is because, in a generation of

REFUGEES, FRONTIERSMEN, BANDITS 235

unscrupulous violence, the soldier is far from regarding the
bandit as his natural enemy. The soldier, like the bandit, is a
professional. The bandit wants to take villages and loot them;
the soldier waits for his chance in a civil war to take towns
and get either loot or promotion and power. Neither sees any
point in a stand-up fight, when the prisoners and the dead
are not likely to have anything on them but arms. Moreover
the bandit may some day be a soldier and the soldier a bandit.
Consequently they regard themselves as colleagues with a
certain professional rivalry, but not enemies unless personal
quarrels arise.

The great wealth of Manchuria and the necessity of main-
taining a good army in view of the civil-war phase of politics
in China account for a higher average and greater regularity
of pay than in the armies of North China generally, while the
prospects of recognition of merit and quick promotion on
active service are also very good. Consequently the soldier-
bandit, bandit-soldier menace is not nearly so great as in China
proper. It is at its worst in the province of Jehol, which now
forms an extra fourth added to the three nuclear provinces
of Manchuria. Where it does occur, however, it tends, as has
been said, to overwhelm and supersede the older banditry.
While it often perpetuates some of the methods of the older
tradition, it has none of the same quasi-constructive, pioneer-
ing qualities. The elimination of the typical Manchurian
banditry, indeed, is largely a question of the passing of the
frontier phase, and the extension of normal administration.
The elimination or increase of soldier-banditry and the ban-
ditry that accompanies social collapse, on the other hand,
depends largely on the quality of that supervening adminis-
tration, and on the soundness of the new society. It is not a
specifically Manchurian problem but a question of victory over
or defeat by the major problems of society and civilization
that confront China as a whole.

CHAPTER X

ALIENS AND THE LAND
JAPANESE AND KOREAN IMMIGRATION

IT HAS frequently been stated that the idea of a great Jap-
anese colonizing migration into Manchuria, once dreamed of,
has now gone by the board because the Chinese have every-
where proved that they can underlive the Japanese as farmers
and farm-laborers. To my mind, however, the simple op-
position of the standards of living of farmers and laborers
is not the whole of the question. The example of Korea ought
to have demonstrated this Japan introducing Western tech-
nique for the development and exploitation of Korea, and
Korean peasant-laborers migrating to Japan. It is, to my mind,
more important that the Japanese have reached a stage of
social, economic and above all historical development where
settlement on the land, out of Japan, even under urgent eco-
nomic pressure, no longer appeals to them. The land-hunger
has gone out of their blood just as effectively as it has gone
out of the blood of the Americans who, in spite of their con-
stantly cited pioneer traditions, and long before the pressure
of population has become anything like as severe as that of
Europe not to mention Japan are now turning from the
land to the cities; and, when they go abroad, go only as ex-
ploiters, never as settlers. In both nations the historical phase
is the imperative factor; economic pressure and economic op-
portunity are only contributory and permissive factors.

The Japanese have now developed the instinct for ex-

236

ALIENS AND THE LAND 237

ploitation as capitalists, industrialists, technicians entrepre-
neurs, in fact. The average peasant would far rather move to
a town and become a factory worker than go abroad to take
up land. The average townsman will move gladly to a big-
ger town, but not to the country. The colonization problems
of Japan are somewhat similar to those of Great Britain, which
finds it easy to export technicians and traders, but difficult,
even with severe unemployment at home and ample lands for
colonization within the Empire, to export colonists. Not only
are the unemployed unwilling to emigrate even under severe
economic pressure, but when they do emigrate, even on fa-
vorable terms of settlement, they make such poor settlers
that they are less and less in demand in the dominions.
The chief difference in the case of the Japanese is that Japan
has not the same reserve of lands within the Empire, nor the
same supply of raw products, to keep the swarming towns in
food and work. The type of agricultural colonization for
which the British are now best suited is that of the plantation
which, historically considered, is late and decadent in
which they can act as overseers and directors. Hence the great
modern British interest in Africa. Much the same is true of
the Japanese; but with the additional handicap of lack of suit-
able territory under their own flag.

Failing such territory, the land which potentially could of-
fer them the best scope is Manchuria, which offers obvious
opportunities for capital and skilled training. Even this,
however, raises intricate questions of treaty relations, treaty
privileges and treaty restrictions. Japan, besides being one of
the nations which, by treaty, holds concessions in certain of
the Treaty Ports, and extraterritorial jurisdiction over its own

1 At the present time, the British Dombions tend increasingly to legislate
against all immigration. This, however, does not alter the fact that even before
the days of such legislation, encouraged emigration from Great Britain had more
and more obviously become a failure.

238 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

nationals in Chinese territory, also holds on lease the area
adjacent to Port Arthur and Dairen known as the Kuantung
Leased Territory, of over thirteen hundred square miles, to-
gether with the one hundred square miles occupied by the
South Manchuria Railway right of way and settlements adja-
cent to railway stations. Like other aliens, however, the Japa-
nese do not in practice have the right to buy or lease land in
China outside of the concessions 2 a restriction which obvi-
ously hinders not only agricultural enterprise on the part of
foreigners, but also all kinds of industrial exploitation.

Nominally, when the nations which hold by treaty the
rights of extraterritoriality (legal, fiscal and disciplinary juris-
diction over their own nationals resident in China, which
make it necessary for both civil and criminal actions against
foreigners to be tried in a court presided over by a judge or
consul of the defendant foreigner's nationality) are prepared
to relinquish these rights, they will in turn receive rights of
free travel and residence in the interior, together with the
right to buy and lease land at present enjoyed only by mis-
sionaries. Actually it is doubtful to what degree foreigners
will ever be allowed to purchase and develop properties in
China. There are precedents in various parts of the world for
controlling the terms of entry and scope of enterprise of aliens,
on which China may well base regulations that satisfy the al-
ready very strong prejudice against seeing Chinese land in
foreign ownership. Moreover there is, apart from the preju-
dice against direct foreign enterprise, the patent danger that
increase of direct foreign ownership and investment may lead
to renewed foreign pressure. It seems to me highly probable
that, pan passu with the modification of existing treaties, there
will be continual pressure to secure rights of direct purchase

2 For the special Japanese position in Manchuria, see below, p. 240.

ALIENS AND THE LAND 239

and direct investment in China, that the success of any enter-
prise on a large scale will lead to national jealousy, and that
the situation thus arising will lead to renewed demands for the
protection of legitimate vested interests.

One aspect of these problems of the future may already be
detected in the special problems of Japanese enterprise gen-
erally, and Korean colonization in particular, in Manchuria.
In extensive regions in Eastern Manchuria, especially in what
is known as the Chientao district, there is an important
Korean population. The question of the extent and exercise
of Japanese authority and control over these Koreans has pro-
duced various points of dispute between Japan and China, es-
pecially in regard to Japanese consular guards and the police
control and frequent arrest of Koreans in Chinese territory. 3
A great proportion of these Koreans are revolutionary and
anti-Japanese, having for that reason migrated from Korea
into Chinese territory. Their most important occupation is
rice farming. They have a technique of northern rice culture
which the Chinese themselves cannot rival, and are thus able
to occupy land in important numbers and with a density of
population that makes them practically immune to Chinese
linguistic and cultural influences.

The national status of many of these Koreans is anomalous
and unsatisfactory. In the first place Koreans who are sus-
pected by the Japanese of revolutionary propaganda may try
to claim Chinese citizenship, without being able to furnish

3 Actually the Chientao region, in which Koreans outnumber Chinese, was
once in dispute between Japan and China. Finally Japan recognized a frontier
between Manchuria and Korea which gave Chientao to China; and at the same time
turned over the Chientao Koreans to China, willy-nilly. The Chientao Koreans
are historically a rearguard; for the Koreans undoubtedly once occupied a con-
siderable part of Manchuria, from which they were driven by the Manchus and
other tribes. This and other rearguard Korean communities are, however, now
being turned into advance-guards by a fresh impulse of Korean migration toward
Manchuria.

240 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

adequate proof, while others, who have previously stated to
Chinese officials that they have "renounced" their status as
subjects of Japan, will later try to claim Japanese protection.
In the second place, there appears to be occasional lack of
uniformity in Chinese practice in admitting Koreans to nat-
uralization, in respect of residence qualifications and so forth.
In the third place there can be no doubt that Koreans fre-
quently attempt to take out Chinese papers chiefly as a screen
while carrying on anti-Japanese propaganda in connection
with revolutionary societies across the border in Korea. In
the fourth place, Koreans aspire to Chinese citizenship in
order to be able to hold land. In such cases, it may be found
that the Korean, naturalized as a Chinese, is actually serving
as agent for a Japanese who finances him. This leads to com-
plicated claims of jurisdiction, and the assertion of the right
of consular protection for a Japanese investment.

Such claims touch a very sore point in Manchurian affairs.
Under the treaty arising out of the celebrated Twenty-one
Demands of 1915, the Japanese acquired the right of unre-
stricted residence and trade in Manchuria, including the
right to lease land; a special modification of the general re-
strictions on foreign enterprise. This right the Chinese have,
in practice, consistently obstructed, bringing strong pressure
to bear on Chinese who attempt to lease land to Japanese.
Although individuals are tempted by the profits of Japanese
cooperation, public opinion is decidedly against it, for fear
of the consequences of the extension of Japanese vested in-
terests.

Consequently the officials, in regions where Koreans form
an important element in the population, are bedeviled -by a
double problem. On the one hand, to uphold their own pres-
tige, they are anxious to extend their administrative control
over Koreans, to exercise their prerogative of naturalizing

ALIENS AND THE LAND 241

Koreans, and to assert their right of protecting Koreans who
have already been naturalized. Naturalization o Koreans
tends to weaken Japanese claims of direct authority, and to
aid the Chinese in attempts to break up the solidarity of the
Korean communities and facilitate their assimilation to the
Chinese. On the other hand the Koreans have thus far shown,
even when naturalized as Chinese, great resistance to ab-
sorption by the Chinese, and no tendency at all to consider
themselves truly Chinese. While they are glad to reside in
China, they have no desire to be anything but Korean in race,
language and culture. Few of them even learn to speak Chi-
nese well, many of them speak practically no Chinese at all,
and they tend to settle in strong enough groups to prevent
modification of this attitude even in the second generation.
Moreover there are to be found among them, besides the purely
anti-Japanese revolutionaries, numbers of enthusiasts for the
Russian type of revolution, who are as much disliked by the
Chinese as they are by the Japanese.

Finally, there is the recurrent problem of Koreans financed
by Japanese. While attempts at direct Japanese colonization
have always failed, even in the Leased Territory of Kuantung
under Japanese administration, there is no doubt that great
and rapid development can be obtained from large estates
financed and managed by Japanese, employing Korean or
Chinese labor. This has been proved on a small scale in the
Leased Territory, but the Chinese are anything but anxious
to see demonstrations on a larger scale. Such extensions
of Japanese vested interests, combining Korean colonization
with Japanese investment, are regarded as a menace of the
gravest kind.

The general result is a tendency to restrict all Korean colo-
nization, although locally landlords often welcome Korean
tenants because rice-cultivation by Koreans provides a bigger

242 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

rent-roll than could be secured if the same land were cul-
tivated by Chinese. The officials, however, are nervous of
Korean penetration for the reasons already discussed, and the
Chinese farming population dislike Koreans because no agri-
cultural community likes to have neighbors that rival it eco-
nomically, whether the competition comes from a lower stand-
ard of living or a higher technique. This feeling, on the whole,
does not yet run high, because there is no serious pressure of
population; but it is obviously an important potential prob-
lem of the future.*

Finally, there is a sort of "irredentist" problem connected
especially with the region of Chientao, where numerically the
Koreans are an important element in the population. Many
of these Koreans are descended from the population estab-
lished there before the annexation of Korea by Japan and the
final determination of the boundary between Korea and Man-
churia along the Tumen river. They are therefore Chinese
by birth, but have no papers to show either their status as
Chinese or as Japanese. There was for some time a dispute
between Japan and China over the actual boundary between
Korea and Manchuria in the Chientao region; this was settled
by treaty in 1909, the T'umen river being established as the
frontier; but, the Koreans being earlier established than the
Chinese, the special Japanese interest in them has never
lapsed, although they are admitted to be subject to China.

The present situation seems to be that while the already
large Korean communities are if anything increasing, ob-

4 Since these lines were originally written, the problem discussed has been
vividly illustrated by the Wanpaoshan incident in Kirin province, where Chinese
farmers opposed with violence the exploitation of land leased to Koreans, The in-
cident led to retaliatory outrages of a much graver kind against Chinese in Korea,
and has raised in an acute form all the old disputes that turn on the leasing of land
to Japanese and Koreans. In fact this outbreak of trouble was as important an
antecedent cause of the rupture between China and Japan as the Nakamura
incident

ALIENS AND THE LAND 243

stacks are put in the way of new settlement. In the region of
the Ussuri, for instance, many Koreans have crossed the border
from Russian territory, to which they had originally migrated
from Korea, but where in recent years they have grown un-
easy under the social and economic reforms enforced by
Soviet government. 5 These unhappy people, whose ancestors,
without doubt, occupied a great deal of what is now Man-
churia and the Russian Primorsk province, and have since
become exiles successively from Korea and from the land of
their first adoption, find anything but a hearty welcome in
Chinese territory. The Chinese no more welcome incom-
patible minorities than do the Russians, and in addition they
fear that an important Korean population in the Ussuri region
might lead to Japanese claims similar to those advanced in
respect of Koreans elsewhere in Manchuria. Consequently,
wherever the Chinese population along the Ussuri is nu-
merous enough, both populace and officials are extremely sus-
picious of Koreans, and try either to drive them back across
the frontier or to break up attempts to found separate Korean
villages.

RUSSIAN IMMIGRATION

Russian penetration is another problem altogether. There
can be no doubt that the Russians are on the move toward
the East and the Pacific; in fact theirs is by all odds the most
important combined migration of people and culture in the
modern world. Although some hold that the Russian con-
ceptions of society and the State have yet to prove their fitness
for survival, I myself think that the major crisis has already
been decided. Russian theories will be progressively modified,
because if the new Russian social-economic organism has

6 Other Koreans, however, have adapted themselves well to Russian rule.

244 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

demonstrated anything, it has proved its extraordinary vigor
and faculty of growth, and no organism can grow without
changing; but of the fact of its survival I think there can be
no doubt.

The most significant quality of modern Russia is its extraor-
dinary faculty of incorporating alien populations within its
own organism. For this reason the Russian advance into the
East is even more important as a migration of ideas than it is
as the movement of a people. The eastward movement of a
strictly Russian population is as yet a minor factor; what is
decisive is the movement of "conversion." Russianized Buriat
Mongols of the Baikal region in Siberia are important instru-
ments of Russian policy in Outer Mongolia, and the "conver-
sion" of natives of Outer Mongolia itself is increasingly
important. Bitterly as Russian policy is detested by certain ele-
ments in Outer Mongolia, it must be conceded (though non-
Russian publicists hate to concede it) that it could not be
carried out at all without the fervid support of other indige-
nous elements. Russianized Central Asians play a similar
part in the new republics of Central Asia. Russianized Mon-
gols, and even a certain number of Koreans and Chinese, in-
cluding officers, appear to have served with the Russian troops
in the actions of 1929-30 on the Manchurian borders, and with
great success. They were distributed among the Russian
forces, not serving as separate units, except for the Mongol
cavalry who marched and fought with great dash and suc-
cess in the Manchuli-Hailar sector who appear to have been
deliberately employed with the idea of demonstrating the
solidarity between Russians and Russian-ruled Mongols in
contrast with the distrust and more or less overt hostility be-
tween Chinese and Chinese-ruled Mongols.

The secret of the Russian style of advance is that it does not
merely establish an administrative order over the heads of

ALIENS AND THE LAND 245

subject peoples. Nor does it depend essentially either on
Russian colonization or "colonial" administration. It inter-
penetrates the indigenous life with great rapidity and thor-
oughness, and every move is prepared in advance with great
care, taking local peculiarities into account and endeavoring
to give a Russian orientation without destroying local loyal-
ties. It spreads control through a local population, rather than
exercising it over them. It thus differs both from the Chinese
style of expansion, which eliminates what it can and absorbs
the rest, and from the Western, which proceeds by administra-
tion from the outside and above, not entering into the indige-
nous life no matter how many native officials are employed
but still tending, normally to "improve" it and create "prog-
ress." The criteria of "progress," however, are Western, and
the very processes of improvement imply that the people who
are. "progressing" are still left in the rear of the West itself.

The truth is that the Russian model of civilization is not
built up so high above its foundations that to adapt it to
local requirements needs postulate extensive sacrifice of es-
sential structural elements. Thus it can offer to any popula-
tion a model which, while Russian in action, is largely local
in structure whereas both the Western and the Chinese
models have been so specialized in the course of their own
evolution that they are old and rigid, and must handle new
material more inconsiderately in order to adapt it to their
own requirements. Russian action can therefore more easily
accomplish its effects by the dynamic use of converted minor-
ities; for while it requires as "articles of faith" a certain creed
of its own, for the assertion of which it sticks at nothing, it can
yet tolerate and even encourage a type of "patriotism" of lan-
guage and tradition, and local nationalisms of race and cul-
ture, that would inevitably ruin the forward movement of any
Western nation, or of China.

246 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

For adequate comparison, we must look to the early Cen-
tral Asian migrations, which did not essentially require the
movement of entire populations over great distances, as is
commonly supposed, but rather imparted a wavelike motion
from one people to another, and often resulted in the leader-
ship of one people by a very small minority of another people.
Or we may look to the creative years of Islam, which, for all
the slaughter it caused, had also an extraordinary tolerance for
all kinds of diverse elements; which enlisted and carried with
it as many as it slew, and which replaced its own losses with
whole-hearted recruits. The spread of Russian influence is
marked by the striking phenomena which attend the creative
years of a new force in the world. It is so overwhelmingly con-
fident of its own power to create that it is not for a moment
ashamed to borrow freely witness the intensive campaign
for industrialization, with its use of American and German
models which, however, when set in motion turn out to be sur-
prisingly different from anything in Germany or America.
True creativeness, indeed, is as much a faculty of inward
digestion as it is of outward expression. There is all the dif-
ference in the world between the old type of Russian borrow-
ing and the new. Under the old order, enterprises of all kinds
were established on "the latest and most improved" Euro-
pean model, and thereafter, under Russian management,
gradually ran down. Under the new, enterprises on "the
latest and most efficient" American model turn, in Russian
hands, into something startlingly un-American; but, in spite
of frequent foreign accusations that things "run down" in
the same old way, they are lively enough to cause excited
speculation abroad. Russia is, beyond a doubt, in the affairs
of its portentous Far Eastern frontier, at least abreast of Japan
and a move ahead of China, which is yet in the stage which
both Russia and Japan have left behind.

ALIENS AND THE LAND 247

The Russian population in Manchuria, while important in
numbers, is chiefly concentrated at one point, in Harbin.
It is markedly urban, being originally derived from Russians
who left Russia before the Revolution, and later strongly re-
inforced by exiles cast out by the Revolution. It has therefore
a strong original anti-Soviet bias; but the anti-Soviet feeling
is on the whole diminishing. At the same time, it has not in
the least become Chinese in sympathy or point of view.
Indeed, its resistance to Chinese influences is more striking
than that of either Mongols or Koreans. In the Russians, the
remarkable Chinese faculty for absorption, which for many
centuries has disposed of a succession of alien conquerors, ap-
pears to have met its match. The Russian exile community in
Manchuria is not even a victorious community; it is a com-
munity of defeat. Yet in spite of loss of prestige, and political
impotence, it remains stubbornly ignorant of China and un-
interested in China. To intermarry with Chinese or live like
Chinese, in spite of the fact that Russians are conspicuously
less influenced by "race-feeling" than are most Westerners, is
a mark of failure. The more successful a Russian is, the less\
he is likely even to speak Chinese. On the other hand, in the*'
sphere of Russian influence in Manchuria, the more success-
ful a Chinese is, the more he is likely to learn Russian or to^
marry a Russian; while Chinese who cross the border intgf
Siberia show a marked tendency to "go Russian" altogether.
The backwash of Chinese and Koreans from Siberia is due
chiefly to their own reluctance to modify their ideas of pri-
vate property, not to Russian unwillingness to incorporate
them within the new order. In North Manchuria, the com-
munity despises Russians, but individuals are eager to be as
Russian as possible, at least socially. Among the Russians,
on the other hand, the community fears the Chinese, but in-
dividuals look down on them. The general situation is per-

248 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

haps a reflection of the general mutual intolerance between
Chinese and foreigners. Nevertheless, it is important that the
Chinese have had practically no success in absorbing or even
influencing this large foreign community under Chinese rule.
While the agricultural Russian community in Manchuria
is not of great importance in numbers, it is experimentally im-
portant. It has proved that Russians can settle on the land,
not only without aid, but in spite of important handicaps.
It has however also proved that they do not tend strongly
to mix with Chinese (though they do mix with and inter-
marry with Mongols and other non-Chinese tribesmen) and
that they do not agree well with Chinese administration.
Russian minorities on the Chinese side of the border appear,
on the whole, to be worse off than Chinese minorities on
the Russian side of the border. I have always been surprised
at the comparatively good-humored tolerance toward Russians
even of Chinese who had attempted to establish themselves
in Siberia, and given it up and returned. The essential differ-
ence appears to be that while they were there, at least they
circulated more freely among the Russians than Russians
do among the Chinese. Russian colonists in Manchuria, in-
deed, tend to settle as far as possible away from Chinese of-
ficials and effective administration, whereas Chinese in Si-
beria very decidedly tend to establish themselves alongside
of Russians, in order to turn to advantage their own superior
quickness and ability, especially in bargaining. The most nu-
merous Russian settlements are in the Hsingan range and
along the upper Amur, with a few villages also near the Us-
suri frontier. Their standard of living is at times very little
if at all higher than that of the Chinese, but their occupa-
tions are distinctly more varied, especially in the raising of
livestock. They push much farther into the wilderness; they
like loneliness, and have none of the fear of the remote unin-

ALIENS AND THE LAND 249

habited wilderness that is a common characteristic of Chinese
colonists.

A certain number of these villagers, as well as many towns-
men, have served as mercenaries in Chinese armies, but this,
far from leading to better understanding, has tended to in-
crease mutual dislike. The Chinese are naturally fearful of giv-
ing real military authority to alien mercenaries, and being
given no opportunity for a career of success and power, the
Russians look on military service as an expedient nearly as
desperate as banditry. A great many Russian village colonists
are naturalized Chinese, and this also has led to bitter feel-
ings. The Soviet Russians claim that on the outbreak of
trouble between China and Russia in 1929, these exiles fur-
nished "partisan" bands which, encouraged by the Chinese,
raided across the Russian frontier. It is doubtful whether re-
sponsible Chinese officials encouraged such raids; but there
can be no doubt that Chinese generally, at least at the begin-
ning of the trouble, when confidence was high, the Russians
were thought to be on the run, and the real power of the
Soviets had not yet been categorically demonstrated, were
glad to hear of any attack on Soviet Russia.

The villagers, for their part, claim that after the flight p
the Chinese armies, the Soviet forces raided among the exile
colonies and carried off many prisoners; and that when nego-
tiations were opened, the Chinese officials were afraid to chal-
lenge the Russians by demanding the return of naturalized
Chinese Russians together with other prisoners exchanged
the Russians having, in fact, forestalled them, by demanding
the punishment, by the Chinese themselves, of "White'' Rus-
sian "partisans." At any rate, one of the sequels of the Russo-
Chinese conflict was an outbreak of peculiarly savage ban-
ditry among the remoter Russian settlers. These bandits kill
all Chinese at sight, regardless of whether they are worth

250 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

robbing or not, claiming that they were "betrayed" by the
Chinese, that the protection offered them as Chinese citizens
is worthless, and that there is nothing left for them but to live,
fight and die as desperate outlaws. This banditry has not
yet been put down, it has the tacit sympathy of many towns-
men, and owing to their sparsely inhabited country, and their
intimate knowledge of it, they are able to evade or hold off
superior bodies of Chinese troops. Indeed, they have so much
fighting spirit that they are said sometimes to take the ini-
tiative in attacking Chinese troops, from whom they capture
arms and ammunition.

The divergence between exile Russians and Soviet Russians
has, owing to the progress of the Revolution in Russia, be-
come so extreme that, as I was informed and can readily be-
lieve, it is now virtually impossible for an exile to cross the
frontier surreptitiously to settle down in Soviet Siberia. The
extraordinary re-creation of national life in Russia has led to
such changes, to such totally new manners, modes of address
and deportment, conversation and even vocabulary, and to
such alterations in the familiar petty details of life, that a re-
turning exile, Russian though he be, almost immediately be-
trays himself a stranger. On the other hand, there are still
surreptitious crossings from the Russian side to the Chinese
side. Even during the months of actual military hostility, in
spite of the fact that the Chinese, in dread of spies, often
treated Russians very harshly, a certain number of peasants,
rebelling against the Five Year Plan and the collectivization
of farms, fled into Manchuria. Nevertheless in fact, partly
because of this one-way communication the effect of Soviet
Russia on the exile community is far greater than the reaction
of the exiles on Siberia. Indeed every fugitive advertises,
by his flight, that there is no hope of overthrowing the new
order in Russia. With the steady increase of Russian prestige

ALIENS AND THE LAND 251

in the face of the world, as well as in relation to China, there
is a decided tendency for the Russian exiles of Manchuria to
remember that, politics apart, they are Russians after all.
Indeed, were it not for the exacting demands made by the
Russians themselves on exiles who wish to recover Russian
citizenship, reconciliation between the exiles and the Rus-
sian Government could be made to proceed much more rap-
idly.

Soviet Russia is in the strong position of not having to tempt
back its exiles; it can do without them, and can therefore
hold up citizenship as a reward which has to be earned.
It has therefore the option of opening negotiations with the
exile community on favorable terms. In this respect it has the
advantage over China. Neither "White" Russians nor Chi-
nese, in the years between the collapse of the old Russia and
the emergence of Soviet Russia as a power of magnitude, made
the best of their opportunities, and the prospects of improved
relations now are not good. The exiles went so badly to pieces
as to give the impression that the only Russian group which
has the power of uniting Russians is that of the Bolsheviks.
The exiles were anxious to escape from Bolshevik rule; they
never relished the idea of Chinese rule, and yet they were
incapable of looking after themselves. Ill-armed, outnum-
bered, with an organization so hopelessly chaotic as to be
worse than no organization at all, they have yet obstinately
held on to a conviction of superiority which outfaces even
the profound Chinese sense of superiority.

They consider that under Chinese rule they have been put
on the same level as Chinese for taxation and administration,
but not on the same level in respect of opportunities for ca-
reers; that they are used as technicians and so forth, but not
granted responsible control; that it would be absurd to think
of a Russian, naturalized in China, holding high office with

252 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

real power; that in fact they have only a one-way equality.
The Chinese, for their part, consider that the Russians under
their rule are, as a community, ungrateful and unreliable:
that, as uninvited step-children of the Republic they have
been given ample consideration and opportunities; but that,
after enjoying for years a refuge from Bolshevism they were,
in the actual crisis of conflict between China and Russia, less
than half-hearted in support of their country of refuge, and
in fact glad on the whole (the urban population at least) to
see China beaten.

If the feeling between urban Russians and Chinese is none
too good, the feeling between agricultural Russian settlers
and Chinese appears now to be hopeless. The Chinese were
never enthusiastic about the settlement of aliens on the land,
and after their recent experiences there is no likelihood that
they will ever encourage it. In view of this, and in spite of
the fact that the colonists fell into their present evil case largely
through their own precipitancy in attacking Soviet Russia,
and the fact that, as peasants, their ingrained suspicion of the
newest Soviet trends is stronger than that of the urban popu-
lation, there is now probably more likelihood than before
that the remnants of them may eventually try to make terms
with Russia.

Whether or not the Russians in Russia ever attempt to make
considerable use of the Russians already in Manchuria, their
position is extremely strong. If the exile Russians have been
able to influence the Chinese to the extent that they have,
and actually to settle on the land, make a living out of it,
and even maintain themselves, however precariously, when
reduced to outlawry, how much more could fresh contingents
from Russia do with the backing of their own nation?
Granted the inevitable historic force of the Russian attraction
toward the Pacific; granted their reluctance to cooperate with
Chinese under Chinese rule, but their proved talent for com-

ALIENS AND THE LAND 253

bination with all kinds of alien elements under their own
rules; granted their ability to settle on the land itself, and
their superior talent for modernization without corollary sub-
ordination to the West it is difficult not to foresee a steady
increase of Russian influence in the region roughly bounded
on the south by the Chinese Eastern Railway. It is possible
even to foresee actual Russian occupation to an indefinite
depth south of the Amur.

Russia is overflowing, under the pressure of ideas which
the diverse examples of America, England, China, Japan and
India prove, each in its own way, to be a far more potent force
than that mere superfluity of numbers that we call "pressure
of population." Its chief outlet is into the ancient "reservoir
of the outer barbarians," which lies north of and powerfully
affects the inner "reservoir" contiguous to the Great Wall
frontier of China proper. The power of Russia is only pre-
cariously damned away from Chinese Turkestan; it has over-
flowed into Urianghai and Outer Mongolia, where the
Russians have proved that they have an ability to rule by
"conversion," enlistment and amalgamation superior to that
of either China or Japan.

It is difficult to see how the same pressure can be held away
from the Amur-Ussuri frontier of Manchuria, which projects
so awkwardly into Siberia. From the Pamirs to the Pacific
Russia has, from the Chinese point of view, assumed the
historic Hun-Turk-Mongol-Manchu functions of the north-
ern barbarian, and is exhibiting in a striking manner the
same historical phenomenon of the ability to enlist, recruit
and lead, not driving local populations before it, but drawing
them along with it. Chinese Turkestan and Mongolia are,
in themselves, more important and significant in the Rus-
sian expansion than Manchuria; but Manchuria commands
the gates to the Pacific, and the Pacific is an imperative factor
in the destiny of Russia's eastern frontier.

CHAPTER XI

THE CITIES AGAINST THE COUNTRY
PEASANT AND TOWNSMAN

THE fact that the great mass of the Chinese population, cal-
culated at I know not what per cent, consists of economically
impotent tenant farmers, peasants and small-holders, is often
and far too readily interpreted to mean that the Chinese are
a nation of peasants, with a peasant culture and peasant stand-
ards. This is because, in our own world, the importance of
the land and the land-fast farming population was destroyed
by the Industrial Revolution. Organically, our structure has
changed from one of social classes to one of occupational
classes; our only valid social criteria are capital and lack of
capital, technique and lack of technique. Consequently, we
look down on any state in which the classes are still organi-
cally social (peasantry, bourgeoisie, aristocracy) not occupa-
tional (unskilled labor, skilled labor, labor and capital), call-
ing it backward or even, in the loose phraseology of the day,
medieval.

Now the essential characteristic of the state in which the
peasant is truly a peasant is judgment by birth. Hence the
English saying (now in effect outmoded; a lingering, not a
vital tradition) that "it takes three generations to make a
gentleman." America is proud of having no peasantry, the
implication being that the farmer does not have a "feudal"
relation to a landed aristocracy, but America is willfully blind
to the fact that American farming, like that of China, is over-

254

THE CITIES AGAINST THE COUNTRY 255

weighted with "crop-sharing" farmers who ought, strictly
speaking, to be classed economically as laborers, not as
farmers. In truth this is, however, only another way of stating
that the farm lad may, within his own lifetime, become a
financier or industrialist, scientist or technician or adminis-
trator, and that his opportunities of marriage into the so-
called upper classes are not limited by birth but by the ac-
cidents of occupation. The corollary of this is that we are
all rootless nations; we are divorced from the land. Our oc-
cupations are no longer determined by place and class of
birth but by talent and opportunity. We substitute one kind
of accident for another, and call it progress, because it is
congruent with our respect for the assertiveness of the in-
dividual. Our equivalent of aristocracy is no longer rooted
in the land but (to continue the metaphor) in portable pots,
which can be moved from one city to another; and when
the plants decay, they are not thrown back on to the land, but
on to the waste-heaps of the city. When a civilization reaches
this point, the city looks down on the country. We no longer
slight a man because he has no pedigree; but we do slight
him if he is in his proper person a country bumpkin.

In these fundamental respects China has not been a peasant
nation for some two thousand years. For at least that period
there has been no important restriction of birth on occupa-
tional choice or promotion (except, under the Empire, for
such vestigial degraded classes as barbers, actors and so on).
As might be expected, also, technique concurrently assumed
the place of birth as the essential social criterion, in the
specialized form of literary knowledge, codified in the old
examination system. It is the abandonment of the old techni-
cal standard without, as yet, the successful substitution of a
new (Western) standard that differentiates China from the
West 00* the lack of the technical standard as such.

256 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

The parallel phenomenon of the flight from the country
to the city, and the superior attitude adopted by city people
toward country people is also fully evident in China; and,
as in all cultures which have reached the city-age of their
history, city-populations are comparatively rootless and trans-
fer with comparative ease, so long as the transfer is only from
one city to another. Finally, the complementary phenom-
enon, that of the relatively debased status of the country
people, who are exploited and victimized by the city people,
and fed into the bowels of the great cities, is as true of China
as it is of the West.

The fact that the Western metropolis, the vast city dominat-
ing the nation and drawing to itself all the resources of the
nation, has not, perhaps, an obvious equivalent in old China,
is unessential. It is due primarily to the fact that the Chinese
civilization never demanded the rapidity and thoroughness
of communication that the West felt to be imperative. Never-
theless Sian, Nanking, Peking were all at different times
characteristically megalopolitan, embodying in themselves
the cultural essence and chief vitality of the nation; and in
spite of the cultural preference for vague communications, the
fact that they were such cities forced on them the construction
of imperial arterial highways, enterprises of the magnitude
of the Grand Canal, and courier systems that far outpaced
the normal leisurely rate of communication. The rapid
growth of Shanghai and Harbin as typically cosmopolitan
cities, far in advance of the Westernization of the nation and
people at large, proves that the nation is more sympathetic
to the stage of culture represented by the great city than to
the type of culture represented by the West.

Indeed the city-feeling, combined with sluggishness of
transport, long ago led to the institution of the metropo-
lis in miniatures-scattered "great cities," each dominat-

THE CITIES AGAINST THE COUNTRY 257

ing its countryside. For many centuries money (which can
be transferred from city to city) has been dominant over
land. For as many centuries the greatest land holders have re-
lied more on their connection with officialdom (which is
quartered in the cities) than on their territorial power, and
have tended, while still holding their land, to live actually
in the cities ; and these are metropolitan conditions. The great
financial importance retained by land is due only in part to
the uncertainty and frequent manipulation of currency
values in itself an index of high sophistication and "late"
civilization. It is due ultimately to the lack of mechanical
manufacture and speed in transfer, characteristics which the
West alone among mature civilizations has developed to the
point where they overshadow all the other features of the
civilization; with the result that land, among Western na-
tions, has a minimum value compared with its retained im-
portance in any other of the great civilizations of history
whether that of Rome or that of China.

Where the "big interests," the city magnates of the West,
manipulate to finance and inspire government to their own
benefit, but base their values on manufacturing power, the
"big interests" of China also manipulate finance and work
through government agencies ("power" being, first and fore-
most, power achieved through an official career), but continue
to base their values very largely on land. Just as the highest
finance of the modern West spreads its investments through
different countries, the land-magnates of China, which is
equivalent to a continent in itself, spread their investments
over different provinces. In other words, what we call the
Chinese peasantry, dominated by money values, the trade-
manipulations of grain companies and city-dwelling land-
lords, and the tax demands of officials, actually fulfills many
of the functions of the Western working proletariat. Like the

258 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

proletariats of the West, they furnish the mob. Their re-
volts are revolts against over-exploitation, and are regularly
marked by hostility between country and city: they are, like
the riots of the Western mob, risings of the "have-nots"
against the "haves." They tend, in the same way, to be equal-
itarian, and to work by blind destruction. They do not (as in
Russia) have a creative value, for they are not efforts to free
society for growth, but struggles, within a society which has
already fulfilled its growth, to alter the distribution of power.
It is therefore easy to understand the sophisticated, exploita-
tional character of colonization in modern Manchuria. What
Western observers, with too glib a facility, call the "land hun-
ger of the Chinese peasant * is not the primary motive power.
Far from being hungry for the land in Manchuria, the great
mass of the colonists are in flight from the land in China.
Perhaps the commonest of all reasons for coming to Man-
churia given by immigrants is that in the old home they
chan pu chu, they "can't stick it," "can't hold on." It is the
fact that they are migrants without option that throws coloni-
zation into the hands and under the control of land magnates
and exploiting groups. The fact that the peasants themselves,
like the city workers of the West, have no way of making
themselves felt except by mass action is one reason a reason
in the background, as it were why they want always to set-
tle in areas contiguous to land already settled, and fearful of
penetrating independently into the farther wilderness.

1 There are two kinds of land hunger. One is that of the man who wants
land because it is the only kind of wealth he likes who would rather have
land, and more land, than hard cash or business investments, and who wants
to live on his land, preferring it to any city luxury. Such an affection for land is
bred only in landowning, land-rooted countrymen and yeomen. This type of
"land hunger'* can be found in "old" communities in Manchuria. The other is
the land hunger of the laboring peasant, not skilled enough to seek a trade, who
must have work on the land in order to live, but who, given the chance, would
rather learn a trade and move to a town. This is far the commoner type in
China, and among immigrants in Manchuria. It is not, essentially, land that such
men want, but employment.

THE CITIES AGAINST THE COUNTRY 259

The striking Manchurian phenomena which are popularly
described as the juxtaposition of the "latest developments of
Western civilization" and the "medieval economy of China,"
the clash of the primitive and the modern, are in reality
phenomena of a rivalry between the methods of two highly
developed but incompatible civilizations. In China proper,
the West contends with the Chinese civilization as established
from time immemorial. Hence the chief phenomena are
those of the destruction of one civilization by another.

In Manchuria, the two styles are rivals contending for prior
establishment in what is as nearly as possible a virgin country
for the area of old Chinese occupation is decidedly over-
balanced by the area of former tribal country and practically
uninhabited land. In this contest the West has the advantage
of the comparatively great speed inherent in Western meth-
ods. Thus Westernization and industrialization, in spite
of being slowed down by the rivalry of the Chinese civiliza-
tion, proceed faster than in China proper. For this very rea-
son, as has already been argued, the importance of Manchuria
as a channel conducting toward China the aggression of the
West is at least as great as its importance in bringing the
expansive powers of China to bear on the frontier.

It must also be borne in mind that the older establishment
of Chinese civilization in Manchuria had already been modi-
fied by regional characteristics, and that in the competitive
effort to establish it in advance of Westernization in the course
of the further spread through Manchuria, the factor of vested
interest is less strong. True constructive amalgamation be-
tween East and West is therefore in certain aspects easier
in Manchuria than in China proper just as, in the past, in
spite of the eagerness of the Manchus themselves to learn all
they could from the Chinese, the Chinese in Manchuria took
on a certain Manchu color. In the modern phase, Westerniza-

260 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

tion reinforces the old regional "reservoir" importance of
Manchuria to the extent that a Manchuria made strong and
rich by the use of Western methods of exploitation, while it
tends in an obvious manner to continue to expand outward,
in no wise relaxes its tendency to bear down on and domi-
nate China.

Manchuria, owing both to the form of Chinese colonization
itself and to the pronounced focusing of Western forces, is
already more "megalopolitan" than any part of China of
equivalent area, and far more metropolitan in ratio of great
cities to total population. Harbin and Dairen, as great cities
of the modern type, are far ahead of Peking and Nanking,
and tend increasingly to rival Shanghai. The drift away from
the land and into the cities is as important as the colonization
of land. The old pride of land, there can be no doubt, has
long been defeated. The peasant and the farmer deprecate
their inferiority to the townsman, and the townsman looks
down on the country boor. The typical ambition of the son
of a well-established landowning family is directed away
from the land and the old comfortable superiorities of the
"squires." The more "progressive" he is the more he wants
to go to the city, where the real opportunities of promotion
and power are to be found. The newly rich invest in land,
but remain in the cities; their town footing is more important
to them than their investments in the country, for it is in the
towns that they negotiate for and keep up the power that
gives them control in the countryside.

The "reservoir" itself, under the Manchus, did still repre-
sent to a certain extent, the power of the country over the
city especially the power of the landed gentry but even so
it was already a dying power. From the country, the great
Banner families sent their sons to the cities to take up offi-
cial careers. Gradually, as the Manchus became more Chinese,

THE CITIES AGAINST THE COUNTRY 261

the successful families tended to move altogether into the
cities. The power of the land lingered in the "reservoir" only
because, being the "reservoir," it dominated China, the land
of civilization. The caretakers and bailiffs of great estates,
more and more neglected by absentee landlords, tended to
form powerful families of their own and in their turn
migrated gradually to the cities, leaving sub-agents in
charge. This was revealed at the fall of the Empire, when
numbers of Peking Manchus, deprived of their subsidies and
virtually shut out of the new official classes, remembered their
estates in Manchuria but found that through the lapse of
time the descendants of their bailiffs (often slaves by origin)
had become rich and powerful. They were in possession, they
collected the revenue, they were in touch with the local offi-
cials; and they held on to the land, in defiance of the de-
scendants of the owners. In the very act of so doing, however,
they had to shift their power from a territorial to a city base.
The city was essential for negotiation with officials. One of
the commonest expedients for a landlord in possession but
without a clear title is to place the land "in trust" with a high
official, "pending fair settlement." The official thus acquires
a revenue, and the title remains permanently unsettled. There
are important lands in Manchuria which have been held
thus "in trust," or "in chancery," as it were, passing through
the hands of a succession of officials, ever since the Revolu-
tion. In the meantime the affairs of the de facto owners have
become interlocked with those of officials, their sons have
entered official careers, and they have permanently moved
from the country to the city in order to handle their affairs
properly.

The landed gentry, the squires and the yeomen, as masters
of the country dominating the towns, have everywhere had
to give way. They have had to abandon the land, leaving

262 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

it, in their turn, to tenants and overseers, because if they wish
to remain in touch with the springs of power and control
they must live close to the officials, in the cities. Mukden,
Kirin, Tsitsihar each provincial capital is full of city-
dwelling land magnates. The flight of the rent-supported
landlords from land to city is, it is true, explained by them-
selves usually as due to banditry and the fear of being taken
for ransom if they stay in the country. This, however, is an
indirect confirmation of the truth; for if their status as great
landlords represented power in itself, as once it did, they
could look after the bandits themselves. As it is, it is no
use living in the country and depending on the troops; they
must move to the cities and keep in touch with those who
have authority over the troops.

While the townsman, when he becomes wealthy, invests in
land but does not move to the country, the countryman, in
proportion as he grows wealthy and acquires land, feels im-
peratively the need of moving to the city. The standards of
the peasant are puritanical, compared with those of the
town: at least in the old settled regions. In the regions of new
settlement, because of the standard of "get rich however you
can, but get rich quick," and because of the scarcity of women,
morals of all kinds are looser. The greatest pride of the coun-
tryman is his ability to fyto jih-tzu a highly idiomatic phrase
meaning that he makes each day pay for itself, that he does
not touch what he can save, that he eats for nourishment, not
because he likes food. Houses that are better than necessary,
the wearing of good clothes, the eating of food "above his sta-
tion," all frivolity, all unnecessary expense, are moral de-
linquencies. But the idea, the ultimate standard that the
farmer has in mind is not a puritan standard. The things that
are wrong are not wrong in themselves. They are wrong "for
the likes of him," but not for those who can afford them.

THE CITIES AGAINST THE COUNTRY 263

In fact, he rather admires extravagance, and even dissipation,
in the rich. He himself lives with a bleak austerity. He saves
because, by superhuman effort, he may one day get ahead in
the bitter struggle for life. If he does, if he ever has in fact
a superfluity of land and wealth, he moves first to a town
and then to a city, or sends his sons there. Basing himself on
the land, he works himself into trade the grain trade and
the transport trade first of all. He lives in dignity on his
income. He endeavors to marry his daughters to officials or
men powerful in trade, and his sons and grandsons are edu-
cated for power and prestige and anything but a puritan

life. .

The refugee peasant, once torn from the land in the prov-
ince of his birth, commonly looks with little ambition on the
land where he settles in Manchuria. His real land hunger
was exhausted in the losing struggle before he migrated.
He knows that the odds are against him, that the landlord
and the merchant will have the whip hand over him as they
did in China. To be torn from the land which at least he
knew, and planted on land in what to him are barbarous sur-
roundings, is, by his standards, bitter defeat. Consequently,
there is a strong drift from country to town among those who
have failed as well as among those who have succeeded.
"Boom" years have decidedly a stronger effect in towns than
in the countryside; for while land values grow, town values
are forced up. The refugee who escapes from the land into a
factory considers that he has gone up in the world. Economi-
cally, he may have become even less secure, but socially he has
become more sophisticated, and with the shallow superiority
of the townsman all over the world he looks down on the
plodding country lout. He may later become a soldier; he may
get into trade ; he may get rich and buy land ; but he will never
go back to the land.

264 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

STANDARDS OF LIVING

The higher standard of living, which is the most important
real attraction of Manchuria for immigrants from China, is in
part a survival from "reservoir" days and in part a product
of new Westernizing conditions. Under the Manchus,^ there
was in fact something approaching a true peasantry in the
regions of Chinese and Manchu population, with class-
equivalents of serfs, yeomen and landed gentry. Social limita-
tion by the accident of birth was fairly effective, except for
the way out offered by the official examinations; but under
certain conditions notably valor in war it was possible
for the individual to rise gradually from one class to another.
The countryside except of course in Mongol and tribal re-
gionswas agricultural, and the towns were important mainly
as administrative centers and garrison points. Trade counted
for comparatively little in the structure of society. Man-
churia produced ample for its own needs, and neither imports
nor exports were vital to its economic life. Its "invisible" im-
ports gave it a favorable balance in the form of salaries, pay
and subsidies to officials, garrisons and Bannermen, and the
fortunes brought back by retired officials. Against these it ex-
ported troops and officials. Ease, plenty and security made
possible a carelessness for money and the needs of the future
which rather horrified the monetary sense of the Chinese.
Nevertheless the Manchu open-handedness communicated it-
self also to Chinese living in contact with the Manchus and
sharing the security of the privileged region. As a result, the
people of the old settled regions to this day live in rather better
houses, eat more (especially more meat), and spend more on
clothing and comfort than the population of north China in

THE CITIES AGAINST THE COUNTRY 265

general. There is the feeling that there is always more where
the last lot came from. The countryman of Kirin or Eastern
Liaoning, on a journey, will stop by the way when he might
have reached home, and eat a good meal and pay handsomely
for it, where the Shantung or Chihli man would trudge on
hungry until he got home.

In trade, again, there is less close application to detail and
much less of the feeling that a man should begin in early youth
to master a craft or trade, rise gradually to responsibility, and
stick to the same thing all his life. Safety is the dearest hope
of the artisan and small trader in North China; in Manchuria,
the average man wants profits that are quick as well as good.
The trader who has come in from China proper has the same
spirit; what, he thinks, is the good of leaving civilization if
you don't make good money by it ? If the profits are not good
enough and quick enough, a man will cut his losses and start
afresh in a manner which, in China proper, would be fool-
hardy. Merchants who have connections in Manchuria know
that they must watch the business with care, for while the
connection pays well if it pays at all, the first sign of a set-
backnot necessarily a loss in the business but, often enough,
a falling-off in profits is enough to make the Manchurian
correspondent default and vanish. There are the same phe-
nomena of unlimited opportunity, combined with unscrupu-
lous default, that characterized the period of heavy foreign
investment in development projects in America, when foreign
capital financed American railways, and States of enormous
potential wealth defaulted on their foreign bonds. Manchuria
is also "American" in the freedom with which men change
their occupations, residence and interests. This is not the rest-
lessness of primitive migration. Manchuria is to China as
America is to Europe; a country to which have been trans-

266 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

planted not the original elements, but the late products, of a
civilization already advanced, with the consequence that these
late forms, comparatively unimpeded by the accumulations
of the past, take on a fresh growth of their own. In China, as
in Europe, sophisticated money values overrule all other
values; but in Manchuria, as in America, money has a freer
hand than in either China or Europe.

It is not at all uncommon in Manchuria, for instance, for
a man to invest his capital in motor-road transport in Liao-
ning; fail, leaving heavy debts; go to Kirin and start in the
timber trade with no capital, no training, nothing but con-
fidence and (usually) an "inside" personal connection, and
make a great deal of money; invest his profits in Heilung-
chiang in the grain and bean business, and lose everything;
move back to Western Liaoning and make money again. It is
common even to find a man who is known to be "wanted"
for banditry or embezzlement or something else outside the
law in one part of the country, and high in the councils of the
chamber of commerce and allied with the private investments
of officials in another.

The frontiers of expansion and colonization have peculiar-
ities of their own. The legend of the hardy pioneer, which
arises in every colonized country after the true pioneer period
is safely over and done with, is largely false. The early pioneer,
in Manchuria as in the American West, was bold and hardy,
and quite as often as not a far from ideal citizen. Where the
early period survives, as it does among the opium pioneers
and bandit pioneers, the frontier is still the land of men who
can look after themselves; but this period precedes the boom.
When the boom comes, the "admirable bad men" move on,
and their place is taken by the sly, the quick-witted and the
unscrupulous, who do not work with their own hands but
make other men work for them; who profit by rising values

THE CITIES AGAINST THE COUNTRY 267

and look out for themselves by looking after other people. 2
Although wages are high as well as prices on the frontier,
and big profits are made on a quick turnover, the big money
is all in the hands of the middlemen. The settler himself
must face a far harder standard. The long reach of the land-
owner and the dealer in farm produce give them a powerful
advantage. The secondary migrant, it is true, with his back-
ground of special experience and a capital provided by the sale
of his old land, has only to play safe. The seasonal laborer,
with no stake to lose and high pay in the short, busy season,
can take his money back to China where the lower standard
of living gives it a much greater buying power.

The immigrant settler, however, whether refugee or man
of small capital, must either take over land at the enhanced
price put on it by middlemen, or work off the price put on it
by a landlord. Whether he works on terms of straight-
forward tenant-rental or rent-purchase, it is difficult for him
to save toward his own economic independence except by re-
ducing his standard of living. The tenant or laborer in the old
settled regions has only to underlive an already comparatively
high standard. For this reason the old, easy-going Manchu
villages of Kirin, for instance, have each their fringe of
Shantung hangers-onmarket gardeners and small tenants
who in a generation or two work their way up to become
small-holders, firmly established. On the frontiers of new
colonization, on the other hand, with their new railways, their
land magnates, their powerful grain-buying and transport
companies, the mass of moneyless refugees have to compete
against one another and the low standard of the destitute.
Their chief safeguard is the prevailing distaste for "planted"

2 To appreciate the equivalent stage in, for instance, American colonization, in
the middle of the last century, one should consult the contemporary accounts of
European observers, which give an impression quite different from the now
popular, non-contemporary, romanticized American version.

268 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

colonization, causing a steady drain away from the new settle-
ments and forcing the exploiting interests to offer, sporadi-
cally, more tempting terms. It is small wonder that the line
of colonization wavers; that there is always a discount, a back-
wash of men who give up the idea of holding land and either
work as laborers for a season and go back to China, if they can,
or make for the towns and employment as laborers; that in
many regions of "new settlement" the villages stand within
sight of abandoned villages where the attempt was made be-
fore, and failed. Nor is it surprising that the final residue of
permanent settlers tends to be made up not of those of the
"pioneer" spirit, but of the most docile and least independent
and enterprising.

In the towns, the standard is even more "American," with
its high wages in contrast with poor security. Under the old
Chinese system, with its apprentice-standards, where men
grow up and work all their lives in the same employment, all
labor is kept on as long as possible in bad times. In Manchuria,
in times of prosperity, the demand for labor is so great that
wages are high and the unskilled man graduates quickly into
skilled labor; but he is turned off ruthlessly the moment that
trade slackens. The towns therefore are full of "floating"
labor that has high standards of getting and spending, no
security, no attachment to a particular business and little
sense of responsibility. This class, like the new proletarian
class in China itself, is of some danger politically, for in break-
ing away from the land and the old guild-system it has lost
its roots and become to a great extent less Chinese, while, un-
like the equivalent class in the West, it has not been evolved
from an indigenous individualistic society and hence is in-
completely Westernized. It is intellectually more active than
the old "common people," and far more positive in times of
discontent; but intellectually confounded by the uncompre-

THE CITIES AGAINST THE COUNTRY 269

hended issues that are being fought out between the Western
order and the old Chinese order. When it strikes, it is likely
to be short-sighted in its demands; when there is no use
in striking it is open to the incitement of any unscrupulous
political agitation that promises something for nothing; and
in between whiles the wilder spirits are likely at any time to
take to gang robbery and banditry.

The standard among women is a reflection of that among
men. In the old settled regions, it is paradoxically at once
higher and more conservative than in China proper. The
early Manchu tradition, with its greater freedom for women,
had a powerful effect on the Chinese who made common
cause with the Manchus; just as the Manchus who went to
Peking were strongly affected by Chinese standards, and
tended increasingly to seclude and restrict their women. Chi-
nese living in contact with the Manchus in Manchuria began
very early to abandon the practice of binding women's feet;
just as Manchus in Peking, while continuing to forbid the
practice of binding the feet of their own women, adopted
a form of shoe which gave their women something of the tod-
dling gait of Chinese women with bound feet. There is a
curious contrast in the readiness with which Chinese aban-
doned foot binding in Manchuria, and the tenacity of the
practice along the Mongol frontier. I am inclined to at-
tribute this to the ready amalgamation between Chinese and
Manchus, as contrasted with the profound cleavage between
Chinese and Mongols. While the Manchus were much more
eager than the Mongols to adopt Chinese standards of civiliza-
tion, the Chinese population in Manchuria, identifying itself
politically with the Manchus, took on Manchu characteristics
to a surprising extent.

At the present time the comparative social freedom of
women in the old settled regions in Manchuria, in going

2 7 o MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

about, joining in general conversation when men are present,
and making their opinion felt in household and family affairs,
gives an impression of "emancipation" when compared with
old-fashioned rural China. At the same time real or rather
fresh emancipation the education of girls, freedom of choice
in marriage, economic independence probably lags some-
what behind the average in China. It is true that the endow-
ment of schools for girls, like the endowment of all educa-
tion in Manchuria, proceeds very rapidly; but I doubt if, in
the general social consciousness, there is the same enthusiasm
for the emancipation of women as a "cause" perhaps for
the very reason that women, in many respects, were not so
backward to begin with.

The comparative scarcity of women must always have had
an effect in enhancing their general value and hence their
social status. This is especially noticeable in the rapidly grow-
ing towns and in regions of new settlement, where the effort
to attract colonists with families has not by any means offset
the surplus of men. This accounts for certain marked diver-
gences between "old" and "new" Manchuria. In the regions
of old settlement, while the proportion of women may on
the whole be smaller than in China proper, there is no really
pronounced lack of women. In the country and in small vil-
lages prostitution exists to a minimum extent. Owing to this,
and to the custom of early marriage, venereal disease is not
at all common. Country people regard it as a city disease.
(This is true also of China proper.) On the frontiers of new
settlement, however, and in the towns, owing to the dispropor-
tion of men to women, prostitution is a flourishing business.
This is not true of villages which are merely groups of farm-
houses, but it is true of the smallest villages to which men
come from the countryside to trade. A village of even forty
or fifty houses will have its brothel and two or three shops
selling cures for venereal disease.

THE CITIES AGAINST THE COUNTRY 271

Women can enter brothels of their own free will, but are
often placed there by husband or family. In the latter case,
although money changes hands and the transaction is com-
monly called a "sale/* it is not strictly a sale but a form of
indenture. The contract provides that the money spent by
the brothel represents, as it were, a capital investment. Of the
money earned by the woman, a certain part is kept by her, and
part goes to the brothel. This is placed, in the books, to the
credit of her account. When her account is paid off, with in-
terest, the indenture terminates, and she is free to do as she
pleases, either leaving the business or remaining in it on a
commission basis. Actually, it is often difficult for a woman to
redeem herself, because she receives clothes and jewellery,
the cost and interest being charged against her account. Ow-
ing, however, to the great demand for women, prostitutes^are
frequently "redeemed" by men who take them either as wives
or concubines. To be thus redeemed by a rich man is their
commonest ambition. The whole system, naturally, is ab-
horrent to the ideas of social reform which are rapidly making
themselves felt in China. Immediate abolition is, however,
impossible practically, in view of local social ideas; more-
over the legal concepts on which it is based are very old, and
generally tolerated by conservative opinion. 3 Constant efforts
toward police control are made, and it appears to be generally
true that a woman who has been forced into the life, and ob-
jects to it violently, can succeed in breaking the contract and
getting free without "redemption."

Surprisingly enough, the number of women imported from
China to be placed in brothels is not very large; though a
regular, but of course surreptitious trade exists. Women born
in Manchuria often take to the life because of its gayety and
the chances of a fashionable life and a good match. Although
the family standards of chastity in China are very high ui-

8 The situation is thus generally comparable with that in Japan.

272 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

deedprobably higher, among poor country people, than
in Western nations they are lowered locally by the pressure
of the demand for women. The woman "with a past" can
make a respectable marriage much more easily than in China
proper. On the other hand, the same demand tends to raise
the age of marriage for girls, in spite of the patriarchal tradi-
tion which encourages early marriage for the provision of as
many descendants as possible, as soon as possible; for parents
will wait several years on the chance of fixing up a really ad-
vantageous marriage.

In spite of the demand for women in Manchuria, the im-
migration of unattached women appears to be comparatively
small. A certain number do come in when large numbers of
refugees are being transported; some of them having, as has
been said, fictitiously registered as wives and daughters. On
the whole, however, the agricultural population (as every-
where else in the world) is shy of strange women. Farmers
want wives who are not only farm-bred, but locally bred.
Probably the most important agency in bringing women into
Manchuria is the army. Whenever troops are sent into China
from Manchuria, a great many of the officers, and even some
of the soldiers, return with wives. The cost of marriage in
China proper is very much lower, and the officer classes, at
least, also think that a wife from the "old country" is smarter
and more fashionable.

In the question of match-making, the influence of the drift
away from the land and toward the cities and money-
standards is very evident. The cost of marriage for a young
fanner is not only extraordinarily high compared with the
cost in China proper, but disproportionately high compared
with the cost for other classes in Manchuria. I have repeatedly
heard it stated, in regions of new settlement, that the young
fanner just beginning to make his own way must pay at least

THE CITIES AGAINST THE COUNTRY 273

a thousand dollars for a match of quite ordinary attractions.
In other words, the cost is almost prohibitive; and the poorer
the man, the more he is asked. On the other hand the mer-
chant, and above all the official and military officer with
good prospects of promotion, even if they have little capital
of their own, can arrange marriages on extremely favorable
terms with country families of comparative wealth; because
such a marriage, to the landowner, is an alliance with power
and fits in with the shift away from immobile land values
to mobile values of money and position.

The standards of living reflected in education in Manchuria
illustrate an acute local development of the conflict between
the old order and the new that is going on throughout China.
The educational endowment (controlled by the State, as
everywhere else in China) is probably higher in proportion
to the population than the average in China proper. Tech-
nological training, benefiting by the extra stimulus of the
South Manchuria and Chinese Eastern Railways, and the ex-
cellent schools maintained by them, is also well advanced.^

At the same time there is a strong conservative tradition
which aff ects the orientation of all education. In China itself
"Western education" still has many of the characteristics of a
"cause," and is, as such, highly destructive of old standards.
In Manchuria, because of the old and firm attraction to China,
intellectual trends, in the very classes which in China are
least conservative, lean toward conservatism. Here again
appears the difference in the East-and-West relationships^ of
China and Manchuria competition, in Manchuria, to decide
which standard is to be set up, as against frank opposition in
China, where the problem is, how far the Chinese standard
will be destroyed before it can rally and subordinate the
Western standard.
Consequently, loyalty to the old tradition in China and in

274 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

Manchuria is, in certain aspects, loyalty of a different color
and feeling. A profound inner discord is caused in Man-
churian affairs by the higher and more rapid technical de-
velopment, which assists the Manchurian pressure on China
and conducts toward China the pressure of the West and of
Russia, working against a counter-trend of vigorous conserv-
atism, which endeavors to preserve the old influence of the
Chinese civilization, and to increase the vitality of nation-
alistic Chinese expansionism in Manchuria. Nationalism and
conservatism are thus identified in a way in which they are
not identified in China itself.

This accounts for the existence, in competition with rapid
Westernization, of an undeniably conservative ideology in
social thought and government practice. While new devices
are spread rapidly, new thought is under administrative sus-
picion. Many of the older school of officials appear to have
a horror of the idea of incorporating Western thought with
Chinese, and to hold that Westernization should be isolated
in compartments, only to be drawn on when needed, and by
no means to be granted the right of demanding to be used.
Even the formulae of Dr. Sun, and the doctrines of the Kuo-
mintang, are not so freely taught as in China, and there is a
decided tendency to keep the teachers of them under ad-
ministrative supervision; while on the other hand the old
classical curriculum is retained and taught (especially in the
lower schools) to a greater extent than is common in the rest
of China. The total result, as a matter of fact, appears from
the foreigner's point of view to be satisfactory, in that it re-
strains theory from getting too far ahead of practice, and
checks the spread of merely "fashionable" Westernization; for
while Westernization as a fashion is very common, there is
a reluctance to allow it to take practical effect until it is
truly inevitable.

THE CITIES AGAINST THE COUNTRY 275

Intellectual circles all over China are as much concerned
with the possibilities of decay and collapse in the Western
civilization as they are with the suitability of Western stand-
ards for adoption in China. This is a characteristic that has al-
ready been touched on. In Manchuria this "hope of deliver-
ance from the West" takes the form of a widespread, eager
expectation that China may yet some day, from within the
repository of her own traditions, produce a latent strength
which can in some manner be triumphantly revived and de-
veloped to the overthrow and consternation of all foreign
power and foreign standards, and enable Chinese Manchuria
to vindicate its Chinese character. The very circles which
are most progressive in clearing away "medievalism," in im-
proving administration and Westernizing economic affairs,
are filled with a strong and conscious pride in the Chinese
point of view, the Chinese way of life and the superiority of
the basic values of Chinese civilization over those of the West.
This is a characteristic which deserves further consideration.

CHAPTER XII

MANCHURIA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD
MANCHURIA AND CHINA

THERE is a curious double phenomenon in the affairs of
modern China. There is a stronger effort toward expansion
of territory and extension of authority than at any time since
the reign of Ch'ien Lung. Popular knowledge of and interest
in the territories of the northwestern, northern and north-
eastern frontiers has grown prodigiously since the foundation
of the Republic, and especially since the unification of the
country under the Kuomintang. The securing of the frontiers
by colonization under government control has become a
definite policy. The division of Inner Mongolia into new
provinces Ninghsia, Suiyiian, Chahar and Jehol is in ef-
fect an effort to get rid of the "reservoir" by obliterating its
regional identity. The assertion of the government's interest
in Chinese communities abroad (notably in the Straits Settle-
ments and the South Seas) represents a new conception of
China's functions as a State, and of the standing of China
among the nations of the world. The cumulating success of
negotiations for drawing up new treaties, abolishing such-
foreign privileges in Chinese territory as foreign-controlled
concessions and extraterritorial jurisdiction, has resulted in an
increase of prestige and an apparent recovery, in part at
least, of the freedom of initiative in international affairs.

Yet in another aspect this interest in the frontiers is only
a reflection of the fact that the frontiers threaten to have more

276

MANCHURIA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 277

control over China than China has over them. The fact of
the matter is that China, though a nation homogeneous in
culture, more homogeneous in population than most Western
nations, and more united in national will than at any time
since the foundation of the Republic, was never weaker than
it is to-day. Foreign aggression, potentially, is a greater danger
than it ever wasT*f he fact that a nation depends on the good
will of foreign nations, and that that good will exists and is
actively exercised, does not alter the fact that it is dependent.
The underlying weakness of China's position could not be
better illustrated than by the fact (not as generally appre-
ciated as it should be) that Westernization, technology,
higher scientific development and higher education all
the things which Chinese leaders themselves feel to be im-
peratively necessary if China is to hold its own with other
nations depend to a very important extent on the re-
mitted Boxer indemnities, and to an only less important ex-
tent on private and institutional philanthropic remittances
from abroad.

It is true that the indemnities are collected from China
herself; but it is none the less true that their remission for
the benefit of China depends on the accident that the remit-
ting nations happen to think that by remitting the funds they
will benefit themselves as well as China, by making China
a country more profitable for Western trade. The remission
of these indemnities is merely another illustration of the
change in form of foreign aggression; yet without them, it
would be exceedingly difficult, in the present state of national
finances in China, to find other funds for the purpose, owing
to the disagreement of regional factions. The Boxer funds,
once remitted, do not remain entirely under the control of
the remitting nation, but are administered by boards on which
China is represented; but this merely obscures the fact that

278 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

the remission itself, under stipulated conditions, means noth-
ing if it does not mean an option of interference.

It amounts, indeed, to a kind of permissive control over
Chinese affairs; and the latest development, that of stipu-
lating for the construction of railways and the foundation of
industries, the materials for the construction of which are to
be purchased in the country remitting the indemnity, ap-
proximates to the assertion of an option of control over the
form that Westernization is to take in China. There is no
doubt that the remitting nations think they are doing "the
best thing for China" ; but it is the best thing from the foreign
point of view. It is no wonder that Chinese opinion does not
glow with quite the same satisfied enthusiasm,

Given this weakness at the heart of domestic affairs, it is
possible to understand how the expansion of Chinese frontiers
by colonization is weakened by an inner conflict. In one sense
it is a part of the struggle to recover internal unity by re-
covery of the initiative in foreign affairs. In another sense,
however illustrated by the dependence on refugee colonists
it illustrates the flight from the weak center. In this re-
spect, the paradox that became evident in the conflict between
China and Russia emerges again; the periphery of China is
in jtsjd^ in, its..extejptil

relations. The provincial governments of the frontiers can
intervene with immediate effect in the domestic politics of
China by mere declarations of attitude; but to expand their
own authority at the cost even of so weak, ill-organized and
poorly armed a people as the Mongols requires a dispropor-
tionate expenditure of strength and money.

Expansion does not gain momentum without Westerniza-
tion; and Westernization, at the moment, hangs uncertain
between the difficulty of raising Chinese capital at all, and
the difficulty of raising foreign capital except on terms which

MANCHURIA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 279

either give the lender a measure of control or as in the case
of certain railways in Manchuria, built for the Chinese by
the South Manchuria Railway, on which payments have
fallen into default an uncertain but none the less dan-
gerous option of reentry by government action into Chinese
affairs. Moreover these railways for railways are the most
dynamic single factor in Westernization simply because they
increase the speed and effect of action, independent of ma-
turely deliberated policy or the purpose of the action tend,
as has been shown, to accelerate the general pace of Western-
ization to a point where China alone cannot handle it, and to
bear strategically on China.

The option of interference which foreign nations hold, the
changing forms of foreign pressure and the disproportionate
physical strength of foreign nations when it comes to de-
cisive, rapid action, as demonstrated by Russia, and again by
Japan, clearly revealed the new aspect of affairs. Incidentally,
the Russian course of action also illustrated a probable future
development in international affairs generally, proving that
it is possible to put troops in the field, win victories and settle
international disputes by virtue of military superiority, with-
out declaring war. On the occasion of this crisis, which was
in effect a test case of major importance, the immediate result
of decisive Russian action was a breakdown in the theory and
conduct of Chinese foreign policy. Factional leaders turned
the occasion to their own account, playing on the variations
which it brought about in the adjustment of provincial and
national policies, and especially in the relation between re-
gional governments and the Central Government, while the
specific responsibility of dealing with the crisis itself w^
warily evaded. The Russians proved that they know exactly
what they want from the West, and that when they have
taken what they want, they cannot be made to take any

2 8o MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

more; they outwitted several foreign offices by twisting the
Kellogg Treaty against war, which had only just been signed,
into a brilliant extemporary device for conducting an entire
campaign under cover, with complete success, without de-
claring war and while in the act of politely debating, according
to the "rules of the game" (Western style) whether or not
the situation warranted the declaration of a war "for purposes
of self-defense" in order to regain a position of crucial of-
fensive strategic importance. On the other side the Chinese,
caught in confusion between the Western "rules of the game"
and their own conflicting opinions of what ought to be done
and what could be done, had finally to fall back on the un-
satisfactory expedient of citing the Kellogg Treaty, and their
own restraint in not declaring war, in order to cover up as
far as possible their actual defeat.

The whole situation, as far as China was concerned, was a
paradoxical reverse illustration of the aphorisms of Spengler
that "domestic politics exist simply in order that foreign pol-
itics may be possible," and that "the State's position in point
of outward power in fact completely conditions its freedom
for inward development" a point, incidentally, well enough
appreciated in China, for on it turns the struggle to get rid
of foreign extraterritorial jurisdiction. The reassertion of the
Russian interest in the Chinese Eastern Railway both strength-
ened the position of the Japanese with regard to the South
Manchuria Railway, and weakened the position of the Chi-
nese with regard to die railways designed to offset the hold of
the South Manchuria and Chinese Eastern systems. The
strength of the movement of independent Chinese expansion
in Northern and Northwestern Manchuria, which had aug-
mented enormously during the period of Russian quiescence,
was immediately and noticeably curtailed.

The outcome of the struggle also threw a light on the fu-

MANCHURIA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 281

ture of "foreign privilege" in China; for while the theoretical
status of Russian citizens in China was not altered, their
standing in fact improved. Russians began to receive better
treatment at the hands of common people, police and officials.
When, in a court of law or any dispute, in the face of theories
of "justice" and "guilt," the question "Is he a White Russian
or a Red Russian" has a practical importance, the existence
of "privilege," apart altogether from legal definition, cannot
be denied. "Privilege" and "prestige" are only different for-
mula for the expression of the same thing.

The only conclusion possible is that the expansion of Chi-
na's land frontiers is, in large measure, a function of Western
activities and Western pressure, and emphasizes the grave-
ness of the problem of whether, in the future, China can
manage to throw off its dependence on foreign good will,
and define its policies (as Russia does) purely in terms of
what Chinese feeling demands. Thus, in our time, the maxi-
mum Chinese colonizing expansion is in Manchuria, and is
dominated in the strategy of both war and economics by
Western agencies. The momentum of colonization dimin-
ishes westward along the frontiers of Inner Mongolia, in a
proportion directly related to diminished railway construc-
tion, and at the western end of the northern line, in Chinese
Turkestan, is practically nil, the Chinese administration there
being hard enough put to it to maintain itself in the face of
Russian influence. Where the line turns, along the frontiers
of Tibet, colonizing expansion passes from nil to minus; for
the Tibetans, during the twenty years of the Chinese Repub-
lic, have actually been encroaching on lands once conquered
from them by the Chinese, and have been driving out the
Chinese and establishing themselves again; and this move-
ment appears to be spreading over an ever wider territory
and to be gaming in speed.

282 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

What is more, it is evident also that the less expansive the
Chinese frontier, the less the regions under Chinese adminis-
tration adjacent to the frontier press inward on China itself.
This is an interesting reversal of the popular theory that move-
ments of conquest are necessarily cumulative in effect; for in
that case the province of Ssuch'uan, which is losing to the
Tibetans, ought to recoil on China with pronounced effect.
As a matter of fact it does not; on the contrary, it has less
influence on the politics of China than have 'the frontier prov-
inces of the north. Thus the influence of Manchuria (includ-
ing Jehol), the most progressive group of provinces, is ex-
tremely great; the influence of Chahar, Suiyiian and Ninghsia
much less, and the influence of Chinese Turkestan latent.
The reason why the pressure of the Ssuch'uan frontier has
no important cumulative effect, while that of Manchuria has,
is that the Tibetan pressure is chiefly one of population, and
one that has been inherent in the situation for centuries, in-
volving no new conceptions, the cultural pressure being un-
important, while the Manchurian pressure is coincident with
that of the West and Russia.

In practice, the attempt to obliterate the "reservoir" by the
formation of the new provinces of Jehol, Chahar, Suiyiian and
Ninghsia, on a non-"reservoir," "normal" model, has merely
resulted in a reorganization of the "reservoir" and the con-
tinuance of its functions. The process is the same as that
which has preceded every important period of Northern
pressure on China. All through the border regions, powers
and dignities are conferred by the Central Government on the
regional authorities; a device which obscures the fact that
these authorities would have the same powers, whether the
dignities were conferred or not. Where, however, the border
authorities increase their own strength, they have a strong
inclination not to put it automatically at the service of China,

MANCHURIA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 283

but to use it to emphasize their importance with respect to
China. The most recent phenomenon of this kind is the
conferring of important titles and subsidies on the Panch'an
Lama; but (a fact not yet appreciated abroad) this only paral-
lels a strong movement throughout Inner Mongolia to bring
the different tribes, princes and ecclesiastical authorities into
a policy of concerted action, based on resistance to Chinese
colonization; and to coordinate the princely interest with that
of the powerful Lama church and with the growing "Young
Mongol" demand for regional autonomy using the Panch'an
Lama as a symbol and a rallying point.

The crux of the importance of the regional groups is that
they nowhere serve primarily as tools of Chinese expansion-
ism, directed and controlled from China itself. On the con-
trary, they themselves control expansion and exploitation. If
it were possible to build railways fast enough, under the
authority of a strong central government, it ought to be pos-
sible to extend the radical authority of the national govern^
ment. As it is, however, even railways built under authority' 4
of the national government tend to fall under the power of
regional authorities, who handle the rolling stock and receipts
primarily for their own benefit. They themselves control ex-
pansion and exploitation. They decide how many colonists
they want, and where to place them; but the fresh wealth
created by exploitation is brought to bear on China^in the
form of a political importance which dictates to China the^
terms on which the border regions participate in the federal
activity of government in China. ^^

In practice, the factor on which all action turns is the army,
which in modern China constitutes a world in itself, inde-
pendent of national life and feeling and turning from national
to local policy and action according to the interests of its own
leaders, who arise from within it. The armies of China aro

284 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

the chief instruments of Western pressure, and have super-
seded, or rather made unnecessary in the political sense, that
foreign partition of China into "spheres of influence" which
at one time was threatened. What makes the armies more
deadly is the fact that they have become Western in armament
without becoming Western in technique. One of the first
results of successful preliminary Westernization in Japan was
the trial of the new army and navy. After an easy victory over
China, the much more serious challenge of Russia was ac-
cepted and dealt with successfully. It is frequently claimed
that the Japanese forces in these wars demonstrated no
original talent in warfare in the Western style, but adhered
woodenly to the methods of their textbooks. This unduly dis-
credits the courage of the Japanese in sticking to their own
faith in having learned their lessons adequately a courage
which can best be appreciated by comparing these wars with
the modern wars of China, with their hopeless combination
of modern armament and traditional tactics and strategy.
Nor does it give due weight to the fact that the Russo-
Japanese War, though it may have contributed nothing orig-
inal to the Western technique of warfare, was an important
stage in the development of Western military methods from
the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War to the
War of 1914-18; a more important stage than, for instance,
the British wars in South Africa. The study of the Russo-
Japanese War is an essential of military history for modern
soldiers, which cannot be said for the modern wars of China
with their far greater slaughter and sweep of territory.

Twenty years of civil war in China, indeed, and of govern-
ment based on what are practically private mercenary armies,
have not produced a single development of interest to West-
ern military technique. As for Russia, now a very different
nation from that which fought Japan and engaged as an

MANCHURIA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 285

apathetic, pseudo-Western nation in the War of 1914-18, it is
rapidly developing a specifically Russian, non-Western tech-
nique of warfare which is the cause of intense interest, and
no little alarm, to Western nations. The Russian army is an
engine of unknown power and very great importance.

In China, no matter how complete the Western armament,
no campaign, even when foreign military advisors are used,
is carried out in the spirit of the Western method. Thus no
quarrel over domestic mastery is fought to an assertive de-
cision, as the Western feeling would demand, and there is no
question that cannot be reopened; but the definite issue, that
of the relative importance of the West and China, being per-
petually evaded, impends fatally over the country, paralyzing
constructive effort. The weakness of China is a fundamental
reluctance to choose.

The armies of the South are largely financed by Chinese
abroad. The armies of the Center are umbilically dependent
on the revenue of the Maritime Customs. As a large part of
the foreign debt of the country is a primary charge on the
Customs, the Western nations are resigned to the expenditure
of the extra Customs revenue on armaments, if only the prior
loan charges are met; while the Central Government is re-
signed to the necessity of retaining the international foreign
personnel of the Customs, so long as it can impose Customs
surtaxes as freely as it likes. The armies of the North, while
they have at different times been under foreign influence, are
the most free. That is because the North alone is in contact
with undeveloped resources of its own. The armies of the
South and Center destroy as they grow; they are instruments
of the direct conflict between East and West. The armies of
the North are financed in great measure by new expansion and
the opening of new territories; they are an important factor
in the race between the East, the West and Russia for priority

286 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

in the development of the borders, and they are chiefly de-
structive when they are brought to bear in the civil wars within
China proper.

It is a matter of grave difficulty for the commanders of such
armies not to use them thus. An army, being an army, is not
adapted to the conquest of the wilderness. It is not a natural
instrument of "colonization," however well it may serve for
the "colonial" conquest of a region already inhabited. A levy
soldiery, based on a land-fast yeomanry, which is not on per-
manent professional service (like the old Manchu reserve in
Manchuria, or the Cossack organization which accomplished
so much in the conquest of the Siberian wilderness for Russia)
can extend its frontiers by colonization even when, like the
Manchus, it looks to the domination of a civilized land like
China for the real exercise of its power; still more when, like
the Cossacks, it is oriented by inward impulsion toward the
wilderness. A professional mercenary army, however, dis-
sociated from the land, inevitably demands a standard of pure
power. It may base itself on a region, and operate by extend-
ing the power of the region, but primarily it does not demand
land with room for settlement and raw materials to exploit;
it demands cities to occupy, with loot and promotion for the
troops and prestige and power for the commanders.

In such circumstances, policy turns on the accident of the
ambition of the leader. In this respect it is true (as many
Chinese think) that the present phase in China is nothing
new. The political struggle, based on personal ambitions and
dissociated from rival tendencies in social form and cultural
growth, has been known in China ever since China passed
from a civilization that was shaping its future form into a
civilization that had determined its form and settled its char-
acteristics. The Chinese civil war, as a cyclical phenomenon,
is nothing new; it is the substitution of the West, as a de-

MANCHURIA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 287

structive intruding factor in domestic affairs, partly rein-
forcing and partly replacing the old "standardized" barbarian
pressure of the North, that is new.

The Chinese of the present generation who is born with a
taste for theory can, by rational processes, arrive at any one
of a number of possible methods for the redemption of
China; but he is at the mercy of the man of action. Hence
the discontent, often disillusioned and bitter, of the intellec-
tual classes. For the man of action in this generation gravitates
inevitably to the army. No other life in China rivals it in
scope for action. The man of thought may become an en-
gineer or a political economist, but the man of action becomes
a general, dictating the use of railways, controlling the use of
capital in industry and decreeing the collection of taxes. In-
dustries, to him, are sources of wealth; as long as he can ar-
rive at wealth, he does not care for theories of industrializa-
tion. Troops, to him, are the raw material of power, and if
it is easier to achieve power by civil war than by a war against
foreign enemies, he will turn to civil war. The extension of
a frontier is, in its practical aspect, a question of the exten-
sion of his own power, and he measures his power by the
extent to which he is the master, not the servant of the nation ;
hence an expansion of his outer frontier must, for him, pay
dividends in the increase of his domestic power. Western
armaments immediately and palpably increase his domestic
power; hence he does not pause in his career more than long
enough to master enough of the Western technique of
militarism to give him an advantage over his domestic op-
ponent.

Above all he does not care for the theory of the opposition
of Western and Chinese culture and civilization. If he can,
in his foreign policy, keep up enough of a front to give him
independence in his domestic policy he has, for his time and

288 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

generation, achieved the position of a strong man. Con-
structive foreign policy is the luxury of the man who is strong
enough to spare time from domestic policies. To be properly
appreciated, this has to be contrasted with the state of affairs
in Russia, where domestic reconstruction is the luxury of
the men who have succeeded in keeping Russia on her feet
against a hostile world. The careerist, in China above all
the military careerist is content, as a product of his own
civilization, to benefit by as much of the Western civilization
as he can turn to immediate profit in power and wealth, ac-
cording to the standard that prevails in China, and leaving
out of question the relative standard as between China and
the West. The fusion of East and West is not his concern, so
long as the degree of Westernization he adopts is under his
own control, to be used according to his own ideas in as un-
Western a manner as he pleases.

It was the good fortune of Manchuria, both as a region
and as a province of China, that it should have had, in suc-
cession, two such rulers as Chang Tso-lin and his son Chang
Hsiieh-liang. The older Marshal developed with great vigor
the historic "reservoir" position. His son, bred to the career
of the army, combined the habit of the man of action with
the tastes of the man of theory. Before he was burdened with
the chief responsibility, and before he had to treat with the
ideas of the West practically and opportunistically, he became
well acquainted with them as ideas. His own tastes gathered
around him a young group with a strong tincture of theory,
while the family succession secured to him the loyal support
of a strong group of the men of his father's generation, men
strictly of action.

Thus he was able, with an extraordinary degree of success,
to maintain the indispensable regional strength of Manchuria,
while using the strength of his own personality to divert
Manchuria as far as possible from the fate of the pure "reser-

MANCHURIA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 289

voir" policy. It was owing entirely to his personal choice,
and personal courage in making the choice, that the potential
power of Manchuria over China was exercised with restraint
and discretion. It was because he himself chose to be guardian
of China's frontier, and a leader in the expansion of China,
rather than one of the claimants to power in China, that Man-,
churia was able to keep up its frontiers as well as it did. The
successes of Manchuria notably in the rapid expansion into
Inner Mongolia stand to his personal credit, while such
failures as that of the stand against Russia and the disaster off
the Japanese blow of September 1931 resulted in part from
the historic weaknesses in the material at his command (such
as the inherent distaste for northward campaigns, as against
the enthusiasm for southward campaigns) but in the main
from the lack of a strong nation behind him in the south.

The measure of his success was that by his personal in-
fluence he made Manchuria, potentially China's most dan-
gerous frontier, into an outpost that, in spite of difficulties,
was strong and confident. So formidable was the develop-
ment that the Japanese, after being afforded a pretext by too
cavalier treatment at the hands of the Kuomintang and "young
China" group, thought themselves forced to take the grave
risk of direct intervention in September 1931, in order to cut
short the rapid growth of Chinese power. Fundamentally the
Chinese error in allowing events to go so far was the old er-
ror of pressing too far their old land-frontier technique against
a sea-power.

The hope of a rally within China lies, after all, not with
the men of action but with the men of thought, and espe-
cially with what is called the "Chinese Renascence" move-
ment. For the present, the men of action exclude its leaders
from any real control in affairs; and this is to the good, for it
turns the movement inward, into the life of the nation, giving,
it a chance to spread widely before breaking into the sphere

2 9 o MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

of action. The Chinese Renascence is a movement toward
the rediscovery, reexperiencing, revaluation and reinterpreta-
tion of the basic values of the indigenous culture of China.
If it has the vitality to spread (and it has many signs of such
a vitality) from literature and academic discussion into the
world of life and action, it may yet reanimate China. The
movement involves, in certain aspects, the application of
Western criteria, by Chinese, to Chinese values of thought
and experience. Nevertheless its constructive power comes
from within, for it demands the prior mastery of the Western
criteria themselves by Chinese.

In such processes, though they have yet to spread from the
cities and from intellectual circles into the life of the nation
at large, there is real hope, because they make possible a true
integration of Western elements. In this way they are supe-
rior to schematized programs of "reform," which begin in
the world of politics, not of life and inward experience, and
represent in the ultimate analysis (even the "Three People's
Principles" of Dr. Sun, for instance) merely proposals of
maximum voluntary surrender on the part of China; and in
so far as the Renascence movement replaces compromise by
integration, digestion of the West by China, it tends to break
the present stalemate of ruinous makeshifts. The very slow-
ness of the spread of the Chinese Renascence from the world
of thought to the sphere of action may prove ultimately a
source of strength, through making possible a more thorough
antecedent integration of thought and feeling with practice.

THE PLACE OF MANCHURIA IN WORLD AFFAIRS

The two views of the "Manchurian Question" most com-
monly held are that, on the one hand, Manchuria is destined
to be a Flanders or Alsace-Lorraine of the Far East; or that, on

MANCHURIA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 291

the other hand, Chinese colonization in Manchuria is the van-
guard of a Chinese advance that will one day throw the
dominating shadow of China over all the territories of the
North Pacific seaboard. 1 According to this view, Japan is
destined to become a Far Eastern Belgium, dominated by the
continental mass of China as Belgium is dominated by Eu-
rope; while China is also destined to intervene between Russia
and the Pacific as Western Europe intervenes between Russia
and the Atlantic.

Whatever the outcome may be, there can be no doubt that
the fate of Manchuria turns not only on the population
movements of our own generation, but on the policies that are
now being formulated by China, Russia and Japan. Chinese
colonization may or may not, in the end, settle the question;
in the meantime, what it has definitely brought about is the/
necessity of a considered change of policy on the part of all
the nations immediately affected.

The period of more or less vague wariness and policies of
precaution is at an end, and all depends now on policies of
action. The policy of Japan in Manchuria, ever since the
Washington Conference, appears at the first glance too es-
sentially defensive. This quality of defensiveness it shares,

1 These concluding pages were written before the Japanese intervention in
September 1931. Rather than try to amend them by bringing in references to
a crisis not yet settled when this book goes to the printer, I let them stand, tor
I think that thus they may more clearly bring out the underlying situation, and
so less quickly go out of date.

I have only to add that any attempt to establish a Japanese leadership over
the Manchurian Chinese and the neighboring Mongols, comparable to the
Manchu power over the "reservoir," is not likely to work smoothly. The Japanese
are utterly alien to the "reservoir" tradition-^as are all Western nations. At the best
they could create only another Korea or a new India. The possibility of a
recrudescence of the "reservoir" power lies with the Russians, and with them
alone; for only the Russians are true "northern barbarians"; the Japanese and
all the Westerners are "sea barbarians." What the Japanese action has already
accomplished, however, is a staggering blow to that typi cal my& of the_ ate
Western culture-which however is indestructible-the belief that good intentions
can produce peace throughout the world.

292 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

indeed, with the China policies of all the Western nations.
Nevertheless I do not believe that Japan and the Western na-
tions generally are, in the ultimate analysis, easing up in their
pressure on China. The apparent relaxation is, in reality, as
I have tried to indicate, due to a change in the form of the
pressure. There is no doubt that there is an intention, among
the different foreign offices, to keep out of Chinese politics as
far as is physically possible, and that public opinion supports
government policy, and is even anxious to assist, wherever
possible, the growth of a Chinese nation with a complete free-
dom of initiative of its own.

The question is, how far the logic of events (if it can be
called a logic) will favor the aspirations of Chinese patriots
and foreign altruists. We are, in short, living in the last phase
of the mixed doctrines of national self-determination, inter-
nationalism and, so to speak, super-national government, and
aspiration for world peace, which gained currency during the
period of exhaustion and mental lassitude after 1918. In the
West itself, the conflict of these doctrines is leading toward bit-
ter disappointment, the failure of national self-determination
as a basis for a sound internationalism, and loss of hope for
the ideal of a permanent international peace ruling through-
out the world with the force of law. How far can the West,
which is failing tragically in the West itself, succeed in the
East; and how far can China, dependent as it is on the West,
succeed where the West is failing?

The nations of the West are quite as dependent as China
on the accidents of individual leadership. The leader is now
more important than the nation. This is true of Japan also,
where the political party tends more and more to be identified
with the individual personality of the leader. Policies are no
longer inherent to the same extent in the nation itself, ir-
respective of parties and leaders. Yet the enormous physical

MANCHURIA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 293

powers we have created continue to operate. Our nations are
now the tools of our manufactures, industries, and stock ex-
changes, and these now produce our leaders.

Hence, while individual nations may, for instance, desire
a weak China or a strong China, our industries and our
finances continue to operate as independent powers, irre-
spective of whether China is weak or strong, and the pressure
of the West, accordingly, is changing from the pressure of
separate national policies to the pressure of a civilization which
cannot be controlled by any nation, or group of nations. The
specific internationalism oifthe West, with its characteristics
of good will in intention and helplessness in action, is an in-
dex of the" fact 'that 'the nations of the West no longer guide
the civilization which they created. Yet the old Western pas-
sion for indlividuaiism, responsibility and assertive control
lives on; our leaders only last so long as they can keep up the
illusion of controlling the uncontrollable.

"^Tii^FseeimLS tcTBe no cbriclusion^but that the West has ex-
hausted its powers of creativeness, and left behind the period
when the party meant more than the leader and the nation
meant more than the party. It can be said, of the Europe
of the French Revolution, that if it had not produced Napo-
leon it musTEaye proHuced someone else who would Have
had much the same careerTTo that extent, he was a man of
destiny. The phase was inevitable. On the other hand it can-
not be said of American or British politics of the present day
that a Harding, a Coolidge, a Hoover, or a Lloyd George, a
Baldwin or a Macdonald, are "men of destiny." They wield
enormous powers, but thcyjrc not created or dcmandcd^by
the situation; they are thrown up more or less accidentally

out oFTFewhirl of politics, and the accidents of their coun-
tries' policy follow the accidents of their individual careers.

Important as they are in person, it is not inevitable, but ac-

294 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

cidental, that one should succeed the other. Our modern tend-
ency to create commissions and delegate committees is a con-
fession of subconscious loss of confidence in the inevitability
of our leaders.

Russia appears to be the only nation of the modern world
that is "young" enough to have "men of destiny." It creates
its Lenin and its Stalin; they follow each other with the cer-
tainty of fate. Russia, more than China and more than any
nation of the West, is launched on a career of growth, and
grow it will, irrespective of the leader. Russia, of all countries,
is the one of which it can be said not only that something new
may happen, but that something new is bound to happen.

The activity^. JRussia (which is more important than its
policy} not only in Manchuria but in Mongolia and Central
Asia, illustrates this witlTa deadly clearness. Chinese policies in
MaHEhuria, irrespective of whether the Manchurian Govern-
ment wishes to engage in the politics of civil war in China or
to devote itself to the colonization and exploitation of its own
territory, is inevitably conditioned by the balance between the
domestic affairs of China and its foreign relations. The Jap-
anese policies in Manchuria, irrespective of political pro-
grams of "forward policy" or "policy of conciliation and co-
operation," are inevitably controlled by the struggle between
Western civilization as a whole and Chinese civilization.
Above all, however, the policies of Russia are conditioned by
historic forces. In the early Russian eastward expansion,
forces from within the nation itself, the instinctive efforts of
pioneers and adventurers, overrode the considered policies
of the government. This power from within the nation it-
self is as active as ever, and is chiefly responsible for the fact
that, apart altogether from the difference in government, in
social structure and in declared international policy between
Imperial Russia and Soviet Russia, the actual Russian expan-

MANCHURIA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 295

sion, the type of action taken on the spot, is essentially what
it always was. It is a continuation of what went before. It
still carries on an imperative eastward drift, and still demon-
strates the knack of incorporating non-Russian elements in
the Russian advance. This genius of conquest is more potent
than methods of subjugation or obliteration, for it recruits at
least as fast as it destroys. Of Russia, more than of any nation,
it might be said that there is enough to do at home, without
being active abroad; but there is no point in saying it, for the
nation is oriented outward, and is bound to thrust outward.
The government can only organize what the people of them-
selves accomplish.

The main front of Russian advance is not Manchuria, but
Mongolia and Central Asia. Nevertheless Manchuria , js^the
pivot on which turns the main advance, because it commands
the Pacific outlet which is imperative if the main advance is
to be turned into a permanent occupation and given facilities
of continued growth. Powerjnjhe : North Pacific, however,
is as vital to Japan and China as it , is to Russia. Hence the im-
portance of Manchuria as a front on which not only Russia
and China are opposed, and Japan and China, but on which
Japan and Russia have in the past been opposed and may yet
be opposed again. It is inevitable that China, as the weakest
of the three nations in the sphere of foreign action, should en-
deavor to play off Russia and Japan against each other. It is
also inevitable, however, that, given a certain degree of weak-
ness on the part of China, Russia and Japan should endeavor
to defer issues of direct rivalry between themselves, by con r
cessions to each other at the expense of China.

These are the elementary factors of the situation, well
enough known since the end of the last century, when it had
become evident that China was disproportionately weak as
a military power, that Japan had made itself over into a strong

296 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

nation of Western type, and that Russia was piling itself up all
along the edge of the old buffer region, north of the Chinese
"reservoir" frontiers, and must, unless stopped by military
measures, overflow into them.

The success of Japan in the Russo-Japanese War deferred
the final issue, and was, beyond a doubt, of immediate benefit
to China in terms of the northern frontier as a whole, though
it increased the pressure on the much shorter Manchurian
frontier proper. The final issue was again deferred by the
implication of Russia in the .War .in Europe, and by the tem-
porary collapse of Russian expansion during the Revolution.
The problem is now, however, returning to all its old im-
portanceand more.

In this connection, the livingjorce ^history is demon-
strated in one very curious andTnteresting respect the com-
parativ^cordiality of relations between Russia and China, as
against the acrimony that repeatedly recurs in relations be-
tween China and Japan. There is, to my mind, onlj one satis-
factory explanation" of this. The territories in which Russia
operates are, historically, the territories of the northern bar-
barians; Russian policies are, from the Chinese point of view,
a recurrencejof the old barbarian pressure. Deep in the Chi-
nese consciousness there is a feeling that these processes are
normal; at the very least, they are familiar.

This type of feeling is of enormous importance. It is a
parallel to that between Frenchmen and Germans. No matter
what the individual intellectual capacity of a Frenchman or a
German, they conform to a certain type of action when in in-
ternational negotiation with each other. It is the same with
Russians and Chinese. Rooted in the Chinese consciousness
there is a peculiar contempt Tor Russians. There Is a feeling
that they are to Be "feared, but only" within limits, and that in
spite of being dangerous they can always be used. When it

MANCHURIA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 297

comes to a blunt opposition of force, it may be necessary
to yield to them. It may be necessary to grant them special
powers in the north, just as the old barbarian chiefs were
granted special titles, and their power disguised under the
assumption that it was a power delegated by China. Apart
from direct military conflict, however, the Chinese have never
been afraid of them and are not now. They are profoundly
sure of their superiority in negotiation; they are sure that they
know always what kind of thing the Russians will do next,
and that they will be able to prepare counter measures. Chi-
nese negotiators, even when being forced to yield, appear to
be much more at their ease, and sure of themselves, in deal-
ing with Russia than in dealing with any other nation. De-
feat by Russia has never caused anything like the same con-
sternation as defeat by any other power. The loss of Outer
Mongolia, and its virtual inclusion in the Soviet Union of
Republics, aroused only a fraction of the feeling and comment
caused by any advance of Japanese railway policy in Man-
churia. There is a surejeeling (whether justified or not)
that it is only those .violent but stupid^northern barbarians
again, and that as soon as they calm down they can be
handled.

'In respect of Japan the feeling is quite different. Military
defeat from the seaward side, in spite of the history of the
nineteenth century, is still 'novel and terrifying to the con-
sciousness of the people at large. There is no J?uffer territory
between the sea and the hejyr^^Ohina; there are no non-
Chinese "reservoir" tribes to graduate the shock; and the
tradition of the sea-going population itself is one of ex-
ploiting, not of being exploited. The impact of Western na-
tions, the alimjtandards of the West, treaties dictated by the
West, have always^ aroused^ reaction pyerror and hate far
greater than any defeat in the vague buffer territories of the

298 MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

north. There is no underlying tradition to prescribe a method
of dealing with aggression from over the sea. The methods
appliedTn the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were, gen-
erally speaking, colored by the traditions applying to the
northern land-frontier barbarians. They did not work well;
in fact, they tended to bring on disasters. Hence a feeling,
which has now penetrated very deep, that the Western na-
tions are incalculable, that they are always likely .to spring
a fresh surprise, something quite outside of experience and
the "rules of the game."

Indeecf/this feeling is likely to be justified afresh by the
change in the form of Western pressure. At any rate there is a
pronounced tendency for Western nations, when they are tri-
umphan^oyer China, to be visited with a much greater yin-
dictiyeness, because of an underlying terror of the strange-
ness and unpredictability of Western action, than is visited
on Russia. In the Manchurian theater this hostility is con-
centrated on Japan. A minor defeat in negotiation bj^ Japan
causes^more Baffled rancor throughout the population both
of^Hanchuria and China, than a major military defeat by
Russia. In the same way, sporadic outbreaks of race-feeling
between Russians and Chinese die down and are forgotten,
by botHlidesrinuch more cjuictly than similar "incidents"
between Chinese and Japanese^

In the circumstances, whatever the temporary formal rela-
tion between Russia and China, there is a recurrent tendency
on the part of China to hope and work for help from Russia
against^Japan, father than fi'elp from Japan against Russia.
There is, I think, a feeling that wher^ Russia can be "used" at
all, the method of the use is plaufand tfieT results calculable;
but that any attempt to "use"Japan is profoundly dangerous,
because the tool* however carefully studied!, is never really*

MANCHURIA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 299

familiar and may turn at any moment in the user's hand.
Whatever the momentary incidents of the future, I cannot
but foresee a prevailing tendency for China to align itself
with Russia against Japan; although whether this will be
justified in the upshot by ability to handle Russia as well is
another question. In any case, history is here again on the
side of Russia's Pacific aspirations.

s When the great background of history is taken into con-
sideratiion7anH' tKe strife of civilizations, the actual migration
into Manchuria cannot, I think, be considered the major fac-
tor in the destiny of Manchuria, although it may prove to be
an. important determining factor. Racial stocks, in the or-
dinary physical sense, do not create cultures; they are the
material in which a culture works itself out. It may be that
cultures are born of land and people together; that they de-
mand/for a given setting.

Howevef^ttiat may be, once they are launched they have a life
and career of their own.

"There Is' little difference, in physical racial type, between
the majority of Northern Chinese and the majority of Mon-
gols. Such differences as do exist cannot be divided into
satisfactory categories of measurements. It is often possible to
mistake a Chinese in Mongol costume for a Mongol, or a
Mongol in Chinese costume for a Chinese. On the other hand,
when it is possible to tell them apart, it is possible not because
of differences in stature, dimensions, proportions, of which
one can say definitely "this is Chinese and that is Mongol";
'it is only possible because of differences in stance, movement,
expression, manner, which are intangible in the material
sense, but unmistakable. They are not :jd|%rence^the
physique itself, bii^J^J^JHAm^ c physical structure
Yet these intangibles, which belong to outlook, culture, fed-

3 oo MANCHURIA: CRADLE OF CONFLICT

ing and the way of life, establish a cleavage as marked as that
between the most pronounced Latin and the most obvious
German.

Theoretically, perhaps, Chinese and Mongols ought to fuse
by amalgamation, as the different European stocks are fusing
in America. Actually, their effect on each other is one of
conflict. In the past, the Mongols invaded China, where some
turned Chinese and some remained Mongol, to be driraa
out by the rise of the next Chinese dynasty; but even so, they
had their effect as in emphasizing the cleavage between
North and South in China. In the present, the Chinese in-
vade Mongolia, where the first wave tends to a large extent
to turn Mongol, but the second wave drives out and prac-
tically obliterates the Mongols; but even so they feel the ef-
fect of Mongolia as in taking over the border tradition.

The future of Manchuria is not by any means only a ques-
tion of the prevalence of a Chinese population over Russian,
or Japanese and Korean efforts to plant colonies of settlers.
There is decisive action as well in the rivalry between the
Chinese waj of life, the Russian Vay of life, and the Japanese-
Western way of life. It is possible, perhaps probable, that any
attempt at Russian settlement, even in northernmost Man-
churia, would be smothered by an incoming Chinese popu-
lation; or that, as some hold, Chinese colonization may thrust
into Siberia and overwhelm the Russian element. On the other
hand it is also at least possible far more possible than is gen-
erally realized that the Chinese population adjacent to Si-
beria might be caught up in the Russian advance toward the
Pacific and so Russianized that its Chinese qualities would
become secondary characteristics, like the secondary Mongol
characteristics of the Buriats in Siberia. It is even possible
that Korean migration might result in a Japanese-Korean ad-
vance across the Yalu (rivers always being highly unsatis-

MANCHURIA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD 301

factory frontiers of population and culture) and the estab-
lishment of a new frontier aligned on the Ch'angpaishan
range. The underlying, struggle in Manchuria is, and will be
throughout our century, caused by the conflicting migration
of cultures and people, and the effort of cultures to assert them-
selvesjover peoples. In such a struggle, generals and states-
men are the accidents of history; tradition, the way of life,
the effort of race and region to assert themselves in the face
of culture and nation, and the effort of nation and culture to
impose themselves on race and region, are history, itself.

RESERVOIRS LEAGUES
AND BANNERS

JL

100

1 -

JO

MILES

SO WO ' 200 KILOMETERS

Opium

INDEX

Abuses, Chinese and Western, 137

Accommodation, 142

Activity, 80

Adjustments, 136

Adventurers, 68, 69

Agriculture, Mongolian, 74

Aigun, Treaty of, 113

Albazin, 107

Aliens, land and, 236, 238

America, 267; Europe and, 265-266;
pioneer tradition, 212

American Colonies, 182

Amur river, 15, 16, 22, 24; basin, 23,
1 06; colonists along, 215; opium cul-
tivation on, 192; Russian advance
down, no; Russian interest in, 23;
trade, 23

Antung, 26

Arghun, 22

Aristocracy, 254, 255

Armies, 183, 235; Chinese, 283, 285;
colonization and, 286; Shantung men
in, 207

Artisans, 177

Assertion, 80

Autonomy, 181

B

Baikal region, 244

Banditry, 67, 68, 69; colonization and,
233; frontier, 224, 227; group char-
acter, 225; regional types, 230; Rus-
sian settlers, 249-250; significance,
228; soldiering and, 225

Bandits, 82, 186, 195, 226; reclaiming,
229; Shantung men, 227, 228; sol-
diers and, 234

Banking, 158, 159, 160

Bannermen, 31, 47, 62, 69

Banners, 31, 61, 124

Barbarians, 36, 210, 291, 296; civiliza-
tion and, 38; invasions, 84; north of

the Great Wall, 37; Russians as, 107,

113-114, 167,253,297
Barga, 14, 15, 35, 102; problems, 36;

tribes, 35
Battalions, 32
Belgium, 291
Big interests, 101, 137, 138, 142, 146,

147; colonization and, 213
Birth, 254, 255, 264
Block grants of land, 121
Bolsheviks, 251
Bondholders, 135
Border, 70

Bordered Blue Banners, 32
Boundaries, 49
Boxer Indemnity, 163, 277
Boys, 221

British Dominions, 237
British interests, 28
Brothels, 271
Buddhism, 12, 75
Buffer region, 108
Buriat Cossacks, 114
Buriat Mongols, 112; Russianized, 244
Buriats, 35
Business methods, 143

California, 19, 182

Canals, 21

Canceling out, 80

Caravan trade, 55, 60

Celibacy, monastic, 76

Central Asia, 246; Russia and, 244

Chahar region, 32, 276, 282

Chang Hsiieh-liang, 41, 288

Chang Tso-lin, 41, 102, 288

Ch'angch'un, 20, 25, 32, 33, 130

Ch'angpaishan, 14, 15, 33, 301

Chao jen, 205

Chao-uda, 56

Chastity, 272

Ch'en, 72

303

304

INDEX

Chen, Eugene, 157
Cherim, 56, 58
Ch'ien Lung, 276
Chientao, 239, 242
Ch'i-ju, 63
Ch'i-jen, 62
Chihli, 184, 186, 199
Chin dynasty, 44
Chin (Nuchen) horde, 37
Ch'in Chih Huang-ti, 85 .
China, 4; armies, 285; awakening, 75
center o gravity, 98; city and country,
256; civil war, 284, 286, 287; colo-
nization, 281; culture, 795 ganger
overhanging, 96; destiny, 291; double
phenomenon, 276; emigration from,
99; emigration southward, 18; expan-
sion, 94, 280, 281; expansion beyond
the Wall, 99; expansion in Manchuria,
116, 117; feeling toward Western civi-
lization, 152; foreign debt, 285; for-
eign ownership of land, 238; foreign
privilege in, 117, 281; forward policy,
102; forward policy in Manchuria,
203; history, 98; idealism of the past,
168; interest in the West, 88, 89;
Japan and, n, 12, 85; military life,
287; north versus south, 98, 103;
northern invaders, 38-39; political
funds, 99J pressure on, 77, 292; re-
flected influences, 183; regional prob-
lem, 77; relief of congestion, n;
Russia and, 29; semi-colonial nature,
93; stalemate civilization, 150-151;
weakness, 277, 278, 285; West, rela-
tions with, 88; Western pressure on,
164; Western pressure on, through
Manchuria, 93; Westernization, 89,
153, 164
Chinchou, 199

Chinese, 3; becoming Manchu, 62; colo-
nial expansion, 57; colonization, 5,
31; culture, 79, 290; driving power,
98; early expansion, 53; in southern
Manchuria, 45; migration to Man-
churia, 9; military tradition, 211;
Russians and, 247, 248, 252, 279-280,
296, 298; southern, 17
Chinese and Manchus, 60; facing back

toward China, 60-61
Chinese and Mongols, 53, 126, 131,
299-300; land policy, 55, 56; mixed
classes, 54; trade, 55

Chinese Bannermen, 46, 61, 65, 198,

207 .

Chinese Banners, 46
Chinese civilization, 8, 9, 10, 73, 79,
96, 149, 169; old age of, 96; stale-
mate, 150-151; superiority, 275
Chinese core, 29, 30
Chinese Eastern Railway, 13, 20, 23,
24, 25, 29, 36, 41, 102, 116, 215, 280
Chinese language, 72
Chinese Renascence, 289, 290
Chinese tradition, 88
Chinese Turkestan, 10, 35, 253, 281,

282

Chinese writing, 73
Chinghis Khan, 37, 43 74
Chosotu, 56
Cities, 254; drift to, 256, 260, 261; large

cities in Manchuria, 260 _
Civilization, 255, 257; Chinese, 8, 9,
10, 73, 79> 9 6 > J 49 169; Chinese
center, 183; differences, 150; nvalry
of different, 259; Russian, 245; three
kinds, 4; Western as seen by China,
90

Clans, 51, 6 1, 69, 124
Climate, economic effects, 17
Colonies, 48 .

Colonists, 100, 147; allotting land to,
132; soldiers as, 184; traditional, 221
Colonization, 78, 81, 95 "4, *59'>
banditry and, 233; big interests and,
137, 138; by refugees, 209, 214;
character, 258; Chinese, 57, 58, 281;
desertion from projects, 219; military,
178, 180, 181, 183, 184^185, 187;
negative policy, 103; officials, funds,
and lands, 134; opium and, 188;
pioneer, 219; problem, 97; projects,
219, 220; railways and, 211; sec-
ondary stage, 213; summary of eco-
nomics O, B 1455 Ussuri valley, 197;
wavering line, 268
Commissions to middlemen, 162-103
Communications, 20, 27
Communism in China, 97
Compromise, 158
Confucius, 96
Conquest, Mongol, 75 ^
Conservatism, 274; Chinese, 96
Contracts, 143
Control, 1 66
Corruption, 135

INDEX

305

Cossacks, 106, in, 112; style of ad-
vance, 115

Counties, 125

Countrymen, 262

Credit, 158, 159, 163

Crime, 81

Crop-sharers, 214* 255

Crops, 17 .

Cultivation, frontier, 216

Culture, 13. 7i 299, 301; Chinese, 79,
290; differences, 150

Currency, 158, 159, 257

Customs revenue, 285

Daghurs, 34 35, Io6 I20 I2 4

Dairen, 24, 25, 238, 260

Decentralization, 133

Defaults, 265, 279

Definition, Chinese attitude, 79, 82

Desertion of families, 220, 221

Developers of land, 221, 222, 223

Dictionary, 73

Distilleries, 145

Drifters, 66

Dutch interests, 28

Fengtien (province), 31, 42, 211, 223.

See also Liaoning
Fishing, 51, 121, 127
Fishskin Tatars, 120, 193
Foot binding, 269
Ford, Henry, 165

Foreign aggression, 277; in China, 93
Foreign languages, 176
Foreign politics, 280, 288
Foreign pressure, 20
Foreigners, Chinese business methods

and, 143

Fortification, frontier, 42
Free life, 75

Frontiers, 54, ?6, 266, 276; Great Wall
and, 103; international, settlement,
215; old tradition, 212; policy, 77;
poppy-growing, 194, I95> *96; Rus-
sians and, 115

Frontiersmen, 56, 57, 80, 209; Ameri-
can, 58; Mongol border, 58; secondary
migrants, 221; two types, 53
Fuchin, 24, 192, 193
Furs, 67, 122

East versus West, I37 I5 I 6 3> 259
Economic continuity, 162
Education, 273
"Empire building," 108
Engineers, 165, 169-170 .
Enterprises, Chinese, 135? importance
of personal relations, 160; policy and
principle, 142; "run-down," 161

Environment, 74

Europe, United States and, 182

Evolution, 74

Expedients, 84, 143

Exploitation, 149, I0 5 *7i

Extraterritoriality, 94* 238, 280

Facing toward China, 70* 99 "i, 20
Failures in business, 266
Fak'umen, 33 . .
Families, 133. W; fictitious, 220
Farmers, 56, 262; frontier, 217; retugee,

185; type that move forward, 59
Farming and hunting, 179

Gilyak, 106
Ginseng, 227
Girls, 221, 270, 272
Gobi desert, 30, 39
Going Mongol, 76, 210, 212
Going native, 53, 54. 56, 57* 58, 59 03
Gold, 67; prospectors, 195. 227
Gold (tribe), 106, 120, 121, 122, 131;
Chinese and, 122; demoralization,
122, 123
Goldi, 120
Good intentions, 291
Graham, Stephen, 201
Grain companies, 138, 145
Grain trade, 160

Great Britain, emigration from, 237
Great Hsingan, 15-16
Great Wall, 8, 46, 77, "o; , as luie
cleavage, 38; Chinese culture and,
40; Chinese culture north of, 38;
frontiers and, 103; nature, 48; out-
works, 39; regions north, 99? sym-
bol, 84; tribes north of, 37
Group, individual and, 156, 158; set-
tlers that move on, 221, 222
Guaranteed funds, 163

3 o6

INDEX

H

Habarovsk, 24, 25

Han Chun, 31

Hankow, 157

Harassing, 63

Harbin, 14, I7 20, 22, 193, 256, 260;

opium trade, 194; Russians in, 247
Heilungchiang, 14, 25, 42, 68, 215,

218; banditry, 232-233
Honan, 62
Hsingan, 14, 15, 42
Hsingan Colonization Project, 211
Hsink'ai lake, 22
Hsiungnu, 37
Hulin, 22

Hulutao, 26, 27, 28
Huns, 74

Hunting, 51, 121, 122, 124, 227
Hurka, 14, 16, 33
Huts, 57

Ichou, 33

Idealism of China, 168

Immigrants, solitary, 205; temporary,

199

Imports, 162
Individual, 155; group and, 156, 158;

state and, 155
Individualism, 293
Indo-China, 17
Infiltration, 64, 65, 69, 163
Ingenuity, 170
Inner Mongolia, 15, 39, 276, 281, 289;

effort for regional autonomy, 283
Interdependence, 205
Internationalism, 292, 293
Invaders, 37

Inventions, Chinese, 168, 169
Investment, 139
Investors, 135
Irredentist problem, 242
Islam, 246

i

Japan, 5, 25, 26; advantages in Man-
churia, 27; armies, 284; assimilation
of Western civilization, 151-152;
breakdown of conciliation policy in
1931, 202; China and, n, 12, 85;
Chinese feeling toward, 297; in Man-
churia, 86; occupation of Manchuria,

104; policy in Manchuria, 201, 202,
203, 204, 291, 294; powers of growth,
87; railway position, 28; war with
Russia, 1 1 6; Westernization, 18, 86,
89, 150, 284

Japanese, 18; as entrepreneurs, 236-237;
financing Koreans, 241; immigration
into Manchuria, 236; in Manchuria,
1 8; intervention of September, 1931,
291; leasing of land, 240; problems
of enterprise in Manchuria, 239

Japanese front, 29

Jargon, 177; scientific, 173

Jehol, 7, 14, 42. 57, 209, 235, 276, 282

Jesuits, ii

Jungar Mongols, 35

K'ailu, 223

Kalgan, 28

K'ang Hsi, 73

K'ang Yu-wei, 97

Kellogg Treaty, 280

Kentucky, 108

Khalkhas, 35

Kharachin, 56, 58

Khublai Khan, 73

Kiakhta, 114

Kirin (city), 22, 33, 262

Kirin (province), 13, 14, 32, 33, 42,
215, 265, 267; banditry, 230

Korea, 21, 34, 236

Koreans, 33, 34, 196, 242, 300; Jap-
anese financing of, 241; migration,
236; naturalization, 240-241; status
in Eastern Manchuria, 239, 242

K'ou Wai, 7

Kuantung Leased Territory, 238, 241

Kuo jih-tzu, 262

Kuomintang, 157, 274, 276, 289

Labor, 268

Lahasusu, 17

Lamaism, 76, 126

Lamas, 57, 75, 127, 128, 283

Land, 48, 119, 254, 255; administra-
tion in the reservoir, 123; aliens and,
236, 238; allotment, 121, 132; hun-
ger for, 258, 263; in trust, 261; Jap-
anese right to lease, 240; leasing to
Japanese and Koreans, 242; Manchu

INDEX

307

attitude to, 50; measurement, 125,
130; measurement and allotment,
140; Mongol attitude to, 48-49; Mon-
gol regions, 125, 128; owners in
cities, 262; ownership, 50, 51, 52;
private ownership, 120, 124-125;
public and tribal, 119; rent-purchase
methods, 119-120; values based on,
257

Land companies, 138, 145

Land-grant policy, 115, 141

Landmarks, 49, 130

Language, 72

J^ao-ma-i, 175

Lawlessness, 186, 228

Laws, 82

Leaders, 294

Leadership, 292

Leased territory, 25, 26, 238, 241

Leg-runners, 66

Leisure, 64

Lenin, 294

Li Hung-chang, 97

Liao (Khitan) dynasty, 37

Liao river, 16, 21; valley, 14, 198

Liaoning, 13, 31, 42, 211, 218, 223,
265; banditry, 230; Mongols, 32

Liaotung, 198

Liaoyang, 37

Liquor traffic, 82

Little Hsingan, 16

Liu mm, 200, 228

Loneliness, 224, 248

Loyang, 37

M

Machinery, 162, 164, 165, 167, 171,
177; Chinese view of, 168

Manchu Banner, 31

Manchu Bannermen, 34, 61

Manchu dynasty, 43

Manchu empire, 70

Manchu language, 63, 64, 72-73

Manchuria, 3; attractiveness to Chinese,
64; Chinese in, 10, 45; climate, 19;
colonization by Chinese, 95; destiny,
299, 300; friction with Western in-
terests, 162; historical forces, 4, 6;
influence on China, 282; Japanese oc-
cupation, 86, 104; Mongolia and, 42;
name, 7; Northern, 180; peculiarities,
3; place in the world, 276; power over
China, 289; pressure on China, 99;

relation to China, 77; situation, 94;
term, 77; thrust toward China,
101

Manchurian Chinese, 45
Manchurian Question, 77, 290
Manchus, 6, 14, 31, 105, 107; Chinese
character, 44, 45, 46; hatred against,
72; laws, 46, 47, 108, 141, 200; lines
of endeavor, 52; Mongols and, 43;
Russians and, 105, 108; social or-
ganization, 51; tribal feeling, 8; true
country, 33. See also Chinese and
Manchus

Man-tze, 62

Marketing of agricultural produce, 143

Marriage, 67, 69, 270, 272, 273; busi-
ness interests and, 139; cost, 272;
Manchus and Chinese, 47; Russian
standards, 176

Mechanics, Chinese, 169, 170

Medicinal materials, 67, 122

Men of destiny, 293, 294

Metropolis, 256

Migration, 3-4; North China workers,
19; seasonal, 199; Shantung settlers,
197; Shantung type, 65, 210; spec-
tacular period, 201

Military colonization, 178, 180, x8x,
183, 184, 185, 187

Military officer, story of, 62

Military officials, 186; Shantung and,
207

Military reserve, 179

Military science in China, 90

Militia systems, 32

Min, 62

Minerals, 67

Mines, 120, 154

Ming dynasty, 38, 41

Ming tombs, 46

Mixed classes, 54

Modernization, 78

Monasteries, 75, 126, 127, 211

Money, 146, 257, 266

Mongol Banner, 32

Mongol language, 64, 76, 132

Mongol princes, 49, 50

Mongol Republic, 127

Mongol-Solon, 34, 35

Mongol troops, 178

Mongol-Tungus, 34

Mongolia, 10, 30; Barga tribes, 35;
front, 76; Manchuria and, 42

Mongolian plateau, 14

308

INDEX

Mongols, 8, 37 38, 105; banditry of
the frontier, 230, 231; Barga Mon-
gols, 35; Chinese civilization and,
73, 131; Chinese troops against, 211;
conquests, 75; culture, 73, 74, 126;
displacement from land by Chinese,
129; frontiers, 49; going Mongol, 76,
210, 212; land problem, 125, 126,
128; Liaoning 32; Manchus and, 43;
Manchus and Chinese and, balance,
42-43; physical type, 57; settlers on
land taken over from, 222, 223;
tribal character, 44; tribal feeling, 8;
twelfth century, 74. See also Chinese
and Mongols

Motor transport, 20, 211, 233

Mukden, 25, 33, 46, 262; Japanese oc-
cupation, 30

Muraviev, 113

Mutan valley, 16

Mutanchiang, 14, 33

N

Nadan Hada-alin, 15

Nakamura incident, 202

Nanking, 37. 256

Napoleon, 293

National self-determination, 292

Nationalism and conservatism, 274

Nationalist Party, 157

Natural wealth, 154, i55> 227

Negotiation, 158

Neologisms, 174

Nepotism, 133, 136, 137

Nerchinsk, Treaty of, 106, 107, no,

m, 3

New Manchus, 34, 106, 121
Newchwang, 21, 26
Nikolaievsk, 25
Ninghsia, 276, 282
Ninguta, 33, 108
Nomadism, Mongol, 74
Nomads, 48, 50, in, 121
Non-Banner Chinese, 62, 68
Nonni river, 16, 22
North China, 14, 15, 17, 4* 98, 100
North Pacific seaboard, 291
Nu, 72
Nuchen-Chin, 44

Occident and Orient, 9

Officials, 72, 164; bandits and, 229;

individuals rather than functionaries,
147; methods, 132, 134, 140; office
and official, 136; personal and pub-
lic interests, 158; railways and, 144

Ogotai, 75

Old ants, 175

Old order, 224

Olot, 35

Opium, 122, 178; discussion of the
problem, 188, 189; morality of the
use, 189; outlaw villages, 196; pio-
neers and, 187; policy in dealing with,
193-194; profit in raising, 191; so-
cial danger, 190-191; trade in China,
189; traffic, 82, 83

Orient and Occident, 9

Orkhon river, 114

Outer Mongolia, 14, 39, "4 297; Rus-
sia and, 244, 253

Outlaws, 67

Ox-carts, 233

Pacific Ocean, 295; Russian expansion
toward, 252, 253

Panch'an Lama, 283

P'aQ-t'uei'rk-ti, 66

Passivity, 80

Pastoral life, 74

Pastures, 51

Peace, 291; aspirations, 292

Peasantry, 254, 257, 264; bondage to
the law, 146; refugee, 263; standards,
262

'Peking, 37, 46, 6$, 70, 71, 113* 207,
256

Peking Manchus, 261

Peking-Mukden Railway, 26, 28, 117

Pengtien, 33

Perry, Commodore, 85, 153

Personality, 83, 292, 293

Petuna, 22, 32, 109, 223

Pioneers, 59, 66, 67, 69, 80, 266; Ameri-
can prototypes, 223-224; coloniza-
tion, 219; old American tradition,
212; opium production, 187, 191-
192; Russian, 106

Plains, 1 6

Pogranichnaya, 14

Police, 226

Policy, 142

Political autonomy, 181

Politics, American and British, 293

INDEX

39

Polo, Marco, 73

Poppy cultivation, 189-190, 193;

tiersmen and, 194, i95> J 9^
Population, old non-Chinese, 31
Power, Manchus and, 71
Port Arthur, 26, 238
Ports, 27; lack of, 24-25
Primorsk, 197* 243
Princes, Mongol, 49, 50, 126, 127, 128,

130, 131

Profits, 265, 266, 267
Progress, 101, 133* 2 45 2 55
Progressiveness, 12, 78
Prostitution, 270

Qazaqs, 106

R

Race feeling, 131

Racket, 233

Railway fence, 30

Railways, 20, 27, 105, 203, 278, 279;
China, 90, 92; colonization and, 211;
control, 1 66, 172; core of Manchuria,
30; Japanese position, 28; officials and,
135, 145; problems, 28; refugees and,
210; regional powers and, 283; Rus-
sian position, 29, 114; Western ag-
gression in, 144

Reform, 133, I35 290 , .

Refugees, 100, 186, 263, 267; coloniza-
tion by, 209, 214; farmers, 185; rail-
ways and, 210

Regional feeling, 8

Regional militia systems, 32

Regionalism, 71, j6, 78

Reindeer, 45, 124

Relief projects, 219

Remnant people, 123

Rentals, 142, 214

Reservations, 121

Reservoir, 31, 70, 99. 209, 276; banditry
and, 226; defense walls, 435 effort to
get rid of, 276, 282; Japanese and,
291; military use, 178; orientation,
42; peculiarity, 42; regional impor-
tance, 41; Russians and, 114; spheres
of interest, 105; spirit of, 109; sys-
tem, 39; tribes and, 36

Responsibility, 80, 81, 164; Chinese at-
titude, 79-80, 206; diffusion, 139,
156, 205; peasant's interpretation, 219

Revolution, China's danger of, 97

Rice, 17; Korean culture, 239

River system, 21

River transport, 20

Rubriick, Friar, 73

Russia, 5, 22; activity, 294; advantages
in Manchuria, 27; China and, 29, 94;
movement toward the East, 243, 244-
245, 252, 294; new civilization, 150,
151; orientation, 112; policies, 294;
pressure of ideas, 253; quiescence of
policy, 201, 202, 203; railway po-
sition, 29; State and individual, 155-
156; technique of warfare, 285; vigor
of new organism, 243-244, 246; war
with Japan, 116; Western civilization
and, 153

Russian front, 29

Russian language, 174, 176

Russian revolution, 151, 296

Russian troops, 244

Russian words, 175
Russians, 23, 176; advance, first, 106;
advance down the Amur, no, 112;
as barbarians, 107, 113-114, 167, 253,
297; Chinese and, 247, 248, 252, 279,
280, 296, 298; eastward advance, 300;
exiles, 250-251; Far East and, 105;
function, 107; Harbin and, 247; mili-
tary service, 249; model of civiliza-
tion, 245; Soviet Russians and, 250;
standards, 176; standing in China,
281; Ussuri valley, 197
Russians and Manchus, 105, 108
Russo-Chinese political questions, 23
Russo-Japanese War, 284, 296
Russo-Manchurian affairs, 102, 103

S

Sables, 67, in, 228

San Min Chu 1, 91

Sanhsing, 33, 192, 204

Sao Ta-tzc, 175

Scapegoat, 81, 139

Self-determination, 292

Settlement, 66, 67; garrison method,

on,

179
Settlers, 19, 66; groups that move

221, 222; "lonely," 224
Shaman, 170
Shanghai, 256, 260
Shanhaikuan, 7, 198
Shantung, 21, 184, 186, 208, 218; as-

INDEX

sedation with Manchuria, 198; fam-
ily settlement in Manchuria, 204;
military affairs and Shantung men,
207; period o disorder, 201; sea-
sonal migration, 200; Shantung tradi-
tion, 197, 204; type of migration, 65

Shifts, 84

Shilka, 22

Sian, 256 -

Siberia, 22, 23, 106, in, H3> 4 "
201, 244. 247

Slaves, 1 80

Soldiers, 178, 183, 184; bandits and,
234; mercenary, 184

Solons, 341 1 06

Solun, 34

Solun Railway, 193

South China, 18, 98

South Manchuria Railway, 12, 20, 24,
25, 26, 28, 29, 116, 238, 279, 280

South Seas, 276

Southerners, 198

Soviet Russia, 36, 249, 250, 251

Specialization, 167

Spheres of influence, 284

Spread, 115. I99 209

Squatters, 52, 56, 67, 119, 125* 206, 219

Ssuch'uan, 282

Ssup'ingkai, 33, 223

Stalin, 294

Standards, 176, 255

Standards of living, 264; immigrant
settlers, 267; in towns, 268

State and individual, 155

State monopoly, 155* l6 4

Straight dealing, 143

Straits Settlements, 17, 276

Stratifications, 107

Strikes, 269

Subutai, 75

Suiyuan, 209, 270, 282
Sun, Dr., 90-91, 97 274, 290
Sungari river, 15, 22, 23, 24, 108, no,
120; opium cultivation near, 192;
plain of, 1 6; Shantung settlement,
204; steamer, 174. I75J valley, 122
System, the, 137

TaT'ung, 37
Taiping Rebellion, 178
Taku, 175

Tang dynasty, 37
Tangut, 37
T'ao river, 16
T'aonan, 223
T'ao'rh. See T'ao

Taxation, 119, 142, i44 frontier, 217,
218; poppy cultivation and, 189-190;
undeveloped land, 218
Technical terms, 172-173
Technicians, 165; in China, 166
Technique, 165; Western, 100
Temples, Mongol, 128
Tenants, 146
Terminology, 173
Three Eastern Provinces, 7
Three People's Principles, 91* 290
Three Provinces, 13
Tibet, 1 08, 281
Tibetans, 281, 282
Timber, 24, 120; rafts, 21; trade, 20
T'oa-an-Solun Railway, 36
Toba Tatars, 37 ,

Townsmen, 254, 260, 262, 263
Trade, 141, 265; Mongol, 59
Traders, 59; Chinese and Mongol, 56
Tradition, 101
Transport, 19, 143
Transport companies, 145
Treaties, 156, 157, 237, 27$
Tribal feeling, 8
Tribal groups, 124
Tribal invasions, 31
Tribal questions, 120
Tribes, 31; land and, 48; reservoirs and,

36

Tribute, in
Troops, Chinese, 211
Tsitsihar, 22, 32, 62, 262
Tumen river, 15, 22, 242
Tung K'ou Wai, 7
T'ungchiang, 17
Tungchiangtze, 33
Tungus, 34, 106
Twenty-one Demands, 240

U

Ulgan-alin, 15

Under-dog, 63

United States and Europe, 182

Unregenerates, 39, 4 43> I0 ^ 1

Urga, 29

Urianghai, 253

INDEX

311

Ussuri river, 15, 22, 24, 192; coloniza-
tion and opium on, 196; Koreans
near, 243; region, 115; valley, 22

Venereal disease, 270

Versatility, 170

Villages, 124; abandoned, 223; defense,

226; settlement scheme, 216
Violence, 226
Vladivostok, 25, 28, 113

W

Wages, 267, 268

Wanpaoshan incident, 242

War, 84, 284; Kellogg Treaty, 280

Wealth, 65

Wei dynasty, 37

West, 79 85, 293; approach to China,
89; hope of deliverance from, 275;
how regarded in China, 89; pressure
on China, 292; pressure on China
through Manchuria, 93; problem of,
90; standards, 154; struggle against,
149; technique, 100

West versus East, 137, 150* *63 259

Western civilization, 149; possible de-
cay, 153 f o

Western codes, 82

Western technique, 165

Western Hsia, 37

Westernization, 8, 78, 95, 117-118,

149, 177, 259, 274; China, n, 89,

164, 278; Japan, 18, 86, 89, 284;

railways and, 279

Wilderness, 9, 60, 108, 123, 141, 228
Will, 80

Willow Palisade, 32-33, 43
Winter, 19, 20
Wives, 66-67, 68, 272
Women, 272; deserted, 221; freedom,

269-270; scarcity, 270; social status,

270; standards among, 269
Wo-p'eng, 66
Wo-p'u, 66
Work, 64, 68

Yalu river, 15, 21, 300

Yamen, 227

Yangtze river, 37, 72, 183

Yellow river, 37, 98

Yeomanry, military, 179

Yermak, 113

Yingk'ou, 21, 26, 28

Young China, 289

Young Mongol party, 102, 283

Yuan dynasty, 37, 41, 43

Yuan Shih-k'ai, 158

Yurts t 56